Thirty years of hope take wing
The Colorado Plateau is home to some of North America’s most distinctive birds. Perhaps the most extraordinary is the California condor, a species that once faced extinction. The last one in the wild was captured in 1987 and placed in an ambitious recovery program. In 1996, the first captive-bred condors were released at Vermilion Cliffs, 50 miles southeast of Kanab. This year, more than 500 people celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Arizona-Utah program and watched as four young condors took their first flights into the wild.
Briana Bode, a field biologist with The Peregrine Fund, glowed with excitement as she described the birds released that day: three females and one male, hatched and raised at the World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho. Fourteen weeks earlier, they arrived and were placed in a large pen near the top of a 1,000-foot cliff to acclimate. On September 26, the gate to the enclosure opened at noon Utah time. Fifteen minutes later, the first bird flew the coop; the others followed soon after. Members of the wild flock returned to welcome the newcomers and help them learn where to find food and a safe roost.
Bode and The Peregrine Fund team will monitor the young birds using radio transmitters and GPS tags to improve their chances of survival. If a young bird remains on the ground, exposed to predators, the team can intervene and return it to the socialization pen before another release attempt.
California condors have a wingspan of nine to 10 feet and can soar on rising air currents for miles with scarcely a wingbeat. They usually lay a single egg in a sheltered cliffside cave. Fossil remains found in Grand Canyon caves show that condors inhabited the region during the last Ice Age. Their feet have relatively weak grasping muscles and short claws suited to walking around a carcass rather than seizing prey. As obligate scavengers, condors are vulnerable to lead poisoning from bullet fragments in animal carcasses. Educating hunters about the importance of using lead-free ammunition can help protect condors as well as eagles and other scavengers.
I asked one spectator why she drove 10 hours to attend the event.
“Reverence for life,” she replied. “Humans have a choice in where they live and what they eat, the wild animals do not. It is our responsibility to ensure their survival as well as our own.”
