Many thousands of years ago, when Ice Age “megafauna” like the Wooly Mammoth and the Giant Ground Sloth still roamed, the California Condor was widespread across North America. But as the climate warmed and the giant critters of the Pleistocene died out, the range of the condor gradually shrank and its population waned. By around 500 years ago the birds were confined to rocky scrublands, piney woods and oak savannas in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, California and parts of Mexico.
Then came modern humans. Condors tend to live a long time have a low birth rate, so they are inherently vulnerable to population loss. Many condors were shot by cattle ranchers, who mistakenly believed the innocent scavengers had killed the dead calves they were seen feeding on. Many more died of lead poisoning from eating animals shot with lead shot. Others were poached for museum specimens, and many eggs were taken by egg collectors. Then came infertility from DDT and electrocution on power lines.
By the 1980s only a handful of condors remained. At that time discussions began about starting a captive breeding program. This would require the capture of all the remaining wild birds -- each surviving individual was so precious and life in the wild so perilous for them that it was felt none could remain free.
None too soon the US government approved a plan to capture the remaining condors. On Easter Sunday in 1987 biologists trapped the last wild condor using a cannon net. At that point just 27 condors remained, all in captivity.
The California Condor remains among the rarest and most imperiled birds on earth, but things are looking up. Today released condors are once again flying free! And four facilities are breeding the birds: The San Diego Wild Animal Park (where the program began), the Los Angeles Zoo, the Peregrine Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey in Idaho, and the Oregon Zoo in Portland. Mexico City’s Chapultepec Zoo received two male condors last summer and may eventually become a breeding facility also.
Flying free
Today the California Condor population is up over 300 birds -- and about 150 are free. To spread them out, which makes them less vulnerable overall, Condors are being released at four different locations. Perhaps the best-known is along California’s Big Sur coastline and at nearby Pinnacles National Monument. Another release point is Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge north of Los Angeles. Then there’s Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, and the Sierra San Pedro Mártir mountains in Baja California, Mexico.
In 2003, a pair of released condors successfully fledged the first post-reintroduction chick in the wild, and more fledglings come since. The first condor chicks in over 100 years hatched in Big Sur last spring.
Early success
The first days of the captive breeding effort were fraught with uncertainty because so much remained to be learned about how California Condors lived and bred. And on top of that, since no wild birds remained to do so, scientists not only had to breed the birds -- they also had to teach the young how to be condors before releasing them!
Everyone was greatly relieved and encouraged when a pair of captive birds began courtship behavior in the program’s first winter. By spring the first condor egg laid in captivity hatched at the San Diego Zoo.
As it turns out, condors breed very well in captivity. Their eggs have a high “hatchability” rate, but the birds would ordinarily raise only one chick every two years. Biologists thus remove the first egg laid, hatch it by artificial means and rear the chick using hand puppets as “surrogate parents.” Meanwhile the condor pair has hopefully laid and hatched a second egg and is rearing that young themselves. This “double clutching” has greatly accelerated the condor’s recovery rate.
Though their birth rate remains low in the wild, condor numbers are gradually growing as captive-reared “teenagers” are periodically released back into the wild. Power lines and lead poisoning still threaten the wild birds, as do encounters with fierce Golden Eagles. To help even the odds, captive-bred birds are trained using aversive conditioning to avoid power lines -- and humans. And (finally) the new Ridley-Tree Condor Preservation Act mandates that hunters use non-lead bullets within the condor’s range.
Our tax dollars at work
As you might expect, bring such a big bird back from the brink of extinction entails a big price tag. The California Condor conservation and recovery project is the costliest such effort in US history. The cost (more than half of which has come from federal and state funds) since its inception has been over $30 million.
Has it been “worth it?” You might experience “sticker shock” from that figure but I sure don’t. It’s a fraction of the cost of one fighter jet. Doing what it takes to keep the California Condor flying free feels like a far better investment to me.
Some links to more information about the California Condor:
The San Diego Zoo:
view link
The Peregrine Fund’s website: view link
The US Fish & Wildlife Service (the agency in charge of condor recovery):
view link
The informative Wikipedia entry:
view link
The National Audubon Society:
view link
Peace and good birding,
Scott Cronenweth
Eons birding mentor
www.naturalpathwalks.com
posted by bamagran
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posted by Birdie1
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