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You’re crawling across the desert southwest, haven’t had a drink of water in two days, and the sun is beating down on your back. Desperate, you turn your eyes up to the sky, hoping there might be a plane, but seemingly gigantic birds are circling over you! It’s the California condor. Oh no!

Well, no. Contrary to my melodramatic attempt at a horror movie, condors aren’t out to get us. It is more fitting to say that we are out to get them. They have to run a dangerous gauntlet: besides lack of habitat due to human encroachment across the land, and issues like collisions with power lines, condors face additional complicated problems that have to do with humans hunting for animals other than this protected scavenger bird. Hunters who use lead shot and don’t pick up their kills, or who gut the animals in the field and leave shot in the innards left behind, leave condors vulnerable to lead poisoning. To the condors, animal remains are a lovely meal, but the birds do not realize that their gourmet feast is laced with poison. Several condors that have been released into the wild after their birth. I know a few hunters, and I am doing my best to warn them of the danger their ammunition poses to this critically endangered species. There is a simple solution. Hunters can use alternatives to lead such as steel shot.

Even though Southern Californians played a part in the demise of the California condor population, we are also poised to help them make a comeback. The efforts made since the 1980s at the San Diego Wild Animal Park and the Los Angeles Zoo to increase the bird population and to find ways to get those birds back into the wild is only part of the conservation puzzle. Everyone can do their part by spreading the word about lead shot, habitat protection, and just leaving the condors in peace. We are about 150 birds away from the condor being downgraded from “critical risk” to “threatened,” and with everybody’s assistance, we can reach that goal.

-Sarah, Real World Team

Condors Are Here to Stay

A few years before my birth, California condors came very close to extinction. But thanks to the joint efforts of many organizations in the California Condor Recovery Program, including the San Diego Wild Animal Park and the center for Conservation and Science for Endangered Species (CRES), this majestic species is now on the road to recovery.

The California condor is the largest bird in North America, weighing up to 31 pounds (14.1 kilograms) with a wingspan of 9 to 10 feet (2.7 to 3 meters). It is also a very intelligent species. Condors can spot each other flying from up to 15 miles (24 kilometers) away, they can cover hundreds of miles in a day in search of food and not get lost, and read the behavioral cues of other animals to figure out if they are gathered around something dead, which the condors want to eat. In the early 1900s, California condors roamed the beaches in search for food. Nowadays, although they have vanished from most of their historical range, they are slowly being introduced back into wild areas. But the people and human- created obstacles that exist in these wild places are still troublesome for these inquisitive fliers.

Scientists and bird care staff at CRES and the Wild Animal Park have developed techniques for helping condors that were hatched in managed care but are slated for release into the wild. To prevent deaths caused by power line collisions, the birds are trained to avoid power lines in a captive setting, before they are released to the wild. This technique is proving to be very effective. However, they can’t teach the birds to avoid things like drinking radiator fluid or eating dog food from people’s backyards.

Twenty years ago, if you really were lost in the desert, chances are the only birds you would see circling overhead would be turkey vultures. In 1987, there were a total of 27 California condors left in the world, and all of them were in captivity. Today’s population consists of 284 birds, 156 in managed care and 128 soaring in the wild. But now, thanks to Dr. Mike Wallace of the4 Applied Animal Ecology Division of CRES, and lots of other concerned conservation biologists, animal keepers, and regular people, the condor is back! So turn your eyes to the sky if you are near the Grand Canyon, in Baja California, in the mountains northeast of Los Angeles and southeast of Santa Barbara, and even in Idaho to see the California condors that are flying free. By the way, last year, field biologists captured on film a group of California condors on the coast of Baja California dining on a whale carcass.

-Marika, Conservation team

It’s Up to You, For Condors Too

Now how did Dr. Wallace get to saving California condors? He grew up in Maine as the kid who trained pigeons on his block. He later went to Unity College where he got his bachelor’s degree in science. While getting his master’s at the University of Wisconsin, he apprenticed for a project aimed at releasing black turkey vultures back into the wild. The main focus of his thesis was the development of release techniques that he tested on Andean condors. He went further in his education, receiving his Ph.D. based on his thesis about releasing Andean condors into Peru. He spent four years developing tagging and trapping techniques, skills required to monitor these bald, red-headed birds with feathers as black as night.

After all of that, it’s no surprise that he knows so much about condors. He has also had to learn as he worked, incorporating new technology developments into his conservation work. He is currently monitoring 12 released birds through the use of GPS transmitters at Sierra San Pedro Martir, the tallest peak in Baja California, Mexico.

Testing these techniques at the Wild Animal Park, we had a sort of Easter egg hunt, trying to locate two transmitters that Dr. Wallace had hidden within the landscape of the CRES facility–quite fascinating! However, we soon learned how difficult it is to track in rocky environments, because the signals bounce off of rocks, making the direction of the source hard to determine.

Dr. Wallace’s two main duties are monitoring and fund-raising for the California Condor Recovery Program. To fund-raise, he writes proposals to get grants from those willing to donate. He also does the legwork necessary to get permits from the Mexican and American governments. Dr. Wallace performs directly with the project as well. In Baja California, he organizes events with volunteers in order to build necessary equipment such as the release pen. In fact, this weekend he is returning to Baja California because the behavior of a condor pair suggests that the female may have recently laid an egg. If so, this will be the first California condor egg produced in Baja California since the species’ recent reintroduction there.

-Melissa, Animal Careers Team

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