Baby condor offers hope species will be self-sustaining
One little bird is raising big hopes for the re-wilding of a special species.
A fuzzy gray condor chick — the first-ever “second generation” wild-born condor in a long and hard recovery plan for the endangered birds — has been discovered in a redwood tree in Big Sur.
It was born free. Its parents were also born free. The last birds in its family to see the inside of a cage were its grandparents.
It matters because that’s how species recover — wild birds giving birth to more wild birds. It’s the only way for a species to become sustainable. Otherwise, we’re just constantly propping up populations with captive-bred birds.
“The more they are breeding on their own, the less we have to do,” said Kelly Sorenson, executive director of the Salinasbased Ventana Wildlife Society, which runs the breeding program and discovered the chick.
The baby bird is a living rebuttal to criticism that California’s condor breeding program is never sustainable — that it’s just an expensive, ongoing and futile battle to sustain a dying species, Sorenson said.
“The argument was: If you bring them all into captivity, they would never again be truly wild,” he said.
Spirits have been buoyed by the dramatic recovery of bald eagles — a species that, like condors, almost went extinct. At least 30 breeding pairs of eagles were counted this past spring in central coastal California, from Marin County to Santa Barbara County. There was even a nest in a Milpitas schoolyard.
The baby condor is 3 months old, still covered in dark gray down feathers. Even as a youngster, it’s big, weighing over 12 pounds. (That’s the same size as your Thanksgiving turkey, feeding eight.)
It’s got three more months of growing to do before it is flight-worthy. And it won’t start looking for a mate until it’s 6-years-old. That’s a long way off; bad things could still happen.
The nest is about 70 feet up in a large hollowed-out cavity of an older growth redwood tree in a steep coastal canyon. The cavity was formed by a wildfire, so there’s enough space for the chick to flap its wings and stretch.
The bird was spotted by Joe Burnett, a wildlife biologist at Ventana Wildlife Society who saw its mother fly in and feed the chick. He hiked several miles offtrail through the dense growth of Big Sur, a place still largely inaccessible to travel.
The parents, which carry GPS trackers, have been closely monitored. Its mother, dubbed Miracle, was hatched in the wild in 2009. Its father, Nomad, was born in the wild in 2010. When the pair met and established a breeding territory last year, hopes were pinned on their nesting.
It’s been an uphill battle for a species that has suffered from poaching, lead poisoning and habitat destruction.
Condors — in the vulture family and the largest North American land bird — were listed as an endangered species in 1967. They became extinct in the wild in 1987, when, in a last-ditch effort to save the species, all remaining wild birds were captured. Over the years, they’ve been bred. Slowly, one at a time, their offspring have been released. There are now three geographically separate populations: one in California, one in Arizona and another in Baja California, Mexico.
The California condor conservation project has been estimated to be one the most expensive species-conservation projects in U.S. history, costing more than $35 million, including $20 million in federal and state funding.
Lead poisoning continues to be a problem because condors eat carrion that are killed by lead shot. But that threat may be easing, Sorenson said. Nine birds were killed by lead poisoning in 2013; last year, just three died because of lead. Ventana Wildlife Society has spent $140,000 buying replacement copper bullets to give to hunters.
The ultimate goal is to remove condors from the federal “endangered” species, classifying them as “threatened’ instead. Two of the three conditions have been met, Sorenson said. First, there are more than 15 breeding pairs, above the minimum required number. Second, there are 276 individuals in the wild, far surpassing the minimum number of 150. But the third condition has proven the most challenging: creating a sustainable, self-reproducing wild population.
That’s why the secondgeneration wild birth is so exciting.
“Now we have a chick being raised in the wild by two parents who were raised in the wild,” Sorenson said. “They’re a couple steps removed from a captive breeding program.”
With one new baby bird, “we’re not there yet,” he said. “But we’re on the right track.”