"Endangered species! I don't give a rat's ass!" Though this may resemble a remark made by San Juan County Commissioners during an open house meeting for reintroduction of California condors in southwestern Utah, it was actually made by a golden eagle in the summer of 1997 in Moab, Utah.
But let me back up. Way back. Until the end of the Pleistocene epoch (approximately 10,000 years ago), California condors ranged throughout much of North America. The bird's range began to shrink, so biologists believe, with the extinction of those charismatic megafauna---giant ground sloths, ancient camels, horses, and mastadons---that lumbered across the post-Ice Age landscape. Fossilized remains of condors and another extinct vultures have been found in the La Brea Tar Pits in downtown Los Angeles. Other fossils or remains were found in cave sites with prehistoric occupation.
More recently, during western expansion condors were still seen in flocks of twenty or more. Increased human settlement changed the landscape and reduced the number of large mammals whose carcasses the condors dined upon. Add in human ignorance; condors were thought to spread disease, due to their carrion appetites, so shooting and indirect poisoning---the birds suffered on poisoned carcasses left out for wolves, and later coyotes---inflicted heavy losses on the populations.
Egg collecting also took its toll. The birds do not breed until they are six or seven years old, and though they may live for fifty years or more, pairs lay a single egg every other year. This low reproduction rate could not sustain a healthy population in light of the cumulative impacts. In less than a couple hundred years, a species that once roamed the entire country perched upon the snag of extinction.
Extirpated from Arizona in the early 1900s, one bird was sighted near Williams, Arizona in 1924. Probably a wanderer from California where the last wild population survived in the San Mateo Mountains. Around 1970, only fifty condors lived in the wild. Two sanctuaries in California, the 53,000 Sespe Condor Sanctuary and the 1,200 acre Sisquoc Condor Sanctuary, were established to protect the condor from human disturbance. Conservationists thought that the wild populations could sustain themselves if illegal shooting and poisoning stopped. Optimistic thinking.
But the population continued to decline. The California Condor Recovery Program took flight in 1982 with the removal of condor eggs and hatchlings from the wild. In captivity, attendants dressed in camouflaged clothes and used hand puppets to simulate adults feeding their young. This practice keeps young birds from associating food with humans, an unhealthy correlation. These captive birds were the backups in case the wild populations crashed.
Things looked as bleak as a picked over prairie for the condors in the 1980s. Continued shooting, lead poisoning from deer carcasses and power-line fatalities accelerated the population's downward spiral. In 1985, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made a then very controversial decision to capture all free-ranging condors. The drastic move was made when only 27 condors (including ten adults) were still alive in the wild.
In 1987, on Easter Sunday, the last free flying California condor was captured from the wild. This male, known as AC-9, joined the nine other adults that were already in captivity. These birds and others already in captivity would form the nucleus of the proposed breeding program. The fate of the condor rested on the success or failure of this experimental plan.
The first of the captive breed birds were released from 1992 through 1994 in California. However, like most birds, juveniles learn from their adult parents. These juveniles were on their own and they fared poorly. Many died from power-line collisions or electrocutions when their long wings contacted two lines at the same time. The survivors were recaptured, taken back into captivity and enrolled in condor boot camp.
At training sites at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, Los Angeles Zoo and the Peregrine Fund's World Center for Birds in Boise, Idaho, these juveniles underwent avoidance training. Low voltage shocks were administered to chicks when they perched on power poles or lines in their cages. Like a shock collar on a dog, these jolts taught the young to avoid such hazards. By 1995, these recaptured birds had passed their power-pole-aversion training and were ready for release. Fourteen birds were released in California in northern Santa Barbara County, two were set free in Castle Crags Wilderness, east of San Luis Obispo, and five were released in Ventana Wilderness Sanctuary, a private land holding near Big Sur.
But fatalities are part of Nature's picture. Many raptorial birds experience a high mortality rate in the first year of life. If biologists could reduce this percentage, then the condors would have a greater chance at survival. So biologists provided road kills or still-born calves for the condors to feed upon. They placed the carcasses in safe areas where the condors could feed with a minimum of human disturbance. The biologists would also provide another boot camp training---hazing---which taught the condors to avoid humans, and, when necessary, reinforce the idea that power line poles were not good perch sites.
Also, since 1989 the Arizona Game and Fish Department had investigated the possibility of establishing a second condor population in northern Arizona and southern Utah. Most of the recommended sites were in the northern portion of the state, near the Echo Cliffs and Vermilion Cliffs. The Department used a twelve step program to analyze the project, provide for public input, establish lines of communication and coordination between agencies and interested parties, and to provide a framework for the project.
Of course, the entire project for a second population was met with both praise and resistance. Land owners in the Vermilion Cliffs area were concerned about their land use practices being affected by an endangered species. Ranchers were concerned that visitors would leave their gates open and that their cows would then scatter to the four winds. Bird watchers and nature lovers endorsed the proposal. The San Juan County Commission sued to stop the project; however, that lawsuit was later dismissed in federal court.
All along the USFWS defined the Arizona population as "experimental, nonessential". This designation, under Section 10(j) of the Endangered Species Act, would promote the reintroduction of this second "experimental" population, one that is wholly separate geographically from the original population. The "nonessential" designation considers that the loss of this experimental population would not reduce the likelihood of the survival of the species, and that losses incurred by human-related causes may not necessarily be investigated under the auspices of the Endangered Species Act. Really, the project would depend upon the faith of human kindness and morality, with a lot of discussion and hard field work.
As part of the Arizona reintroduction program, the Peregrine Fund, a non-profit, conservation organization would be contracted by the USFWS to handle the field work. With an expertise in raptors, the Peregrine Fund would be responsible for monitoring the daily activities of the condors, provide carcasses for food, radio track the birds' movements, and capture any unhealthy birds (if necessary) for medical treatment. A big job, to say the least.
Finally, after endless discussions, public forums, permitting, and meetings, on December 12, 1996, six condors were released from their cages high atop the Vermilion Cliffs in northern Arizona. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbit had the on-hand crowd counting down out loud like Mission Control at Cape Canaveral. Though the birds didn't exactly leap from the cages and into the clear Arizona sky, they did manage to hop around on the ledges, check out their new digs, then enthrall the crowd with some short flights. Like baby steps, each one was greeted with enthusiasm and excitement.
In her article "Condor Release" in the November/December 1997 issue of Bird Watchers Digest, author Betsy McKellar wrote, "The national press was there in force. In fact, it looked to me as if there were more photographers than had attended the President's signing of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument declaration at the Grand Canyon just a few months ago. Manuel Mollinedo, The Director of the Los Angeles Zoo, called it 'this millennium's preeminent conservation project.' I think most of us on the bus just wanted to see a condor." Spoken like a true birder.
The six juvenile birds were six to seven months old. All had been raised in captivity and each one had a recorded lineage. One male bird, #49, was the oldest of the group. Hatched in the Los Angeles Zoo, the bird was fathered by AC-9, the last free flying condor that was captured from the wild. His mother, Squapuni, was brought in from the wild in 1984 as an egg and hatched in the San Diego Zoo. She was one of the original birds to start the captive breeding program, alas she has never known the freedom of the wild.
In 1997, thirteen more condors were released at the Vermilion Cliffs. Another eight birds were released at the Hurricane Cliffs near the Grand Canyon on November, 18, 1998 in an effort to establish a second sub-population. With five fatalities in the last two years, one to a golden eagle when the condor refused to back down to the more aggressive species, things are looking up for Arizona's condors. Of course, constant monitoring by the Peregrine Fund's crews helps.
A Visit to Moab
Perhaps it was #49's father's lineage, his longing for the wildness, that sent him. Perhaps it was a wild hair--- investigative curiosity is a trademark of these birds. For whatever reason, #49 decided to take a cruise up the Colorado River. On July 6, 1998, Vicki Maretsy, an ex-condor biologist from California, was leaving Arches National Park. She noticed a large, familiar-looking bird perched across from the park's entrance station. Number 49. She notified the Park Service and the word spread like wildfire on a windy day. Unfortunately for #49, a pair of nearby golden eagles turned on their territorial defense system and grounded the condor. Literally.
I had the good fortune, along with several other members of the Moab Bird Club, National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management, to witness this condor-eagle interaction. The eagles, who were no longer the biggest dog in the sky, tucked their wings and went into Stuka dives after the condor. Unable to gain altitude or attitude, the condor circled and looked for a place to hide. Eventually, the condor came in low, snuck behind some junipers and landed in the safe confines of a large boulder. So much for a wild hair!
Shawn Farry, from the Peregrine Fund field crew, arrived in Moab to locate and observe the interactions of the condor and eagle. Equipped with radio telemetry gear, Shawn could tune into the signal from the condor's wing transmitter. Unfortunately for Shawn, the bird left the area and the signal was lost. He searched the area for two days with no success. Shawn returned to the Vermilion Cliffs release site on July 8, but the condor had beaten him home. By the next morning, #49's signal was loud and clear atop the Vermilion Cliffs, about 200 miles away from Moab.
Other positive condor sightings have occurred at Flaming Gorge, near Vernal, and on Grand Mesa outside of Grand Junction, Colorado---signs that these condors can move about. Today, there are 58 condors out there in the wilds of California, Utah and Arizona, and another 93 in captivity. Perhaps someday the two separate condor populations in California and Arizona may have a close encounter of the winged kind.
Recovery Program's Target
The target of the Recovery Program is to have 300 free-living condors separated between the two geographical populations. The agency also hopes to maintain 150 birds in captivity. Their goals are simple in concept:
1. to maintain the maximum survivability possible for the released birds,
2. to encourage natural forage behavior and suspend supplemental feeding,
3. when reaching sexual maturity at age 6+ years, these condors will pair, breed and raise young.
No small task. Of course, agencies and the Peregrine Fund are looking long term---twenty years down the road. The success of the peregrine falcon's recovery encourages those involved that these three goals can be attained through constant vigilance and protection.
To consider the condor's plight as a simple lesson of natural selection is absurd. We humans are responsible for one of the major extinction periods in the history of the Earth. We have a responsibility as stewards of this planet to insure protection for all species---a responsibility we often fail at. With the Condor Recovery Program in place, at least we have a second chance to right past wrongs.
How to ID a Condor 101
How to identify a condor in the wild. The easiest way, jokes this biologist, is to read its numbered wing tag. No kidding. Each bird in the wild has two, one-ounce wing tags located on the forward edge of their wings. If you want more identifying marks, these birds are huge, 16 to 24 pounds, and have a wingspan that can reach almost ten feet. Like turkey vultures, condors are two-toned on the under side of their wings: light gray on the forward edge and black on the trailing edge. This pattern is opposite of turkey vultures.
Similar to the turkey vultures, the juvenile condor's head coloration changes from grayish to adult pinkish-red. However, condor heads are much larger and more bulbous in appearance. This one field mark has me convinced that a pictograph in Canyonlands National Park is that of a condor.
Condors, like birds of prey, have excellent eyesight. Condors use their vision to locate carcasses, or more importantly, to seek out flocks of ravens, magpies or golden eagles that may indicate a nearby carcass.
If you do spot a condor, call your local Bureau of Land Management Office. You can also check out the condors on the internet at www.peregrinefund.org.
