SPECIAL REPORT: After bouncing back from near-extinction, the giant carrion-eaters may be about to reproduce in the wild. Experts see . . . Condors Flying High, but Not Out of Danger

VENTURA —  Sixteen years after nearly becoming extinct, California condors are making a surprisingly strong comeback, expanding their numbers and their range far beyond the Ventura County back country where the ambitious experiment to rescue them began.

Scientists credit new chick rearing and release strategies for enabling the birds to wing their way back from the brink of annihilation.

In the past decade, the California condor population has increased fivefold, to 150 birds, including 35 in the wild. A record 20 chicks were hatched this year at captive breeding sites at the Los Angeles Zoo, San Diego Wild Animal Park and the Boise, Idaho-based World Center for Birds of Prey.

“We’re at a pivotal point as far as the condor recovery program is concerned,” said Robert Mesta, a federal biologist who coordinates the program at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service headquarters for condor recovery in Ventura. “They’re moving back into their historical range, finding food on their own and exhibiting some breeding behavior.”

Even the strongest doubters, who several years ago feared that recovery was too late and the species doomed, are amazed at the turnaround. Scientists are increasingly optimistic that the giant carrion-feeders with the 10-foot wingspans have a chance to reclaim the skies over California and to become established in other Western states.

“I was pretty pessimistic about saving condors in California because there’s too many human activities going on there,” said Lloyd F. Kiff, science director for the Peregrine Fund, a nonprofit group that breeds condors in Idaho. “It’s been a fairly incredible recovery. It’s far better than I thought it could be.”

Of course, with only 150 left on the planet, the California condor population is still not robust enough to shed endangered species status. Condors remain one of the world’s rarest and most imperiled birds. Wild populations are still small enough to be vulnerable to disease, poaching and predators, according to scientists.

Serious concern remains over whether Southern California, historically a condor stronghold, is the best place to reestablish the bird. Although numbers of wild birds are expanding, long-term prospects are questionable as civilization encroaches deeper into wild lands and brings with it pollution and other hazards. Consequently, federal biologists are planting new condor colonies farther from Southern California.

“We’re doing an atrocious job of protecting large tracts of viable habitats in California. How does that bode in the long haul for the condor? Not very well,” said Kimball L. Garrett, ornithology collections manager at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

But the birds have finally gained a foothold in their native habitat. Sixteen soar on thermal gusts over remote canyons of the Los Padres National Forest. Five cruise the hills above Big Sur. Fourteen were set free northeast of the Grand Canyon last year. The rest remain in captivity, some as a brood stock, some awaiting release.

In the next three months, 22 juvenile condors will be released--the most ever in a season--with the first group of nine scheduled to be turned loose Nov. 18 at Hurricane Cliffs near Page, Ariz. The rest will be set free in California in January, Mesta said.

By the end of winter, 57 condors are expected to be living in the wild, a 63% increase over today’s numbers. It has been 60 years since that many California condors were flying free.

And the birds are surviving longer in the wild, scientists say. Whereas half the condors released in a failed, initial attempt in 1992-93 perished, one in five birds released between 1995 and 1997 died, Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Jane Hendron said. The primary threats to wild condors are vandals who shoot them, power lines and attacks from other birds of prey, principally golden eagles.

Mortality may be down, but critics say that’s because the birds are carefully controlled in the outdoors. Field crews follow all the condors, monitoring their every move every day of the year. They leave them food, shoo them from hazards and rough them up during routine handling to reinforce fear of humans.

“It’s kind of artificial, sort of captivity without walls. There’s still a long way to go,” said Mark Palmer, program director for the San Francisco-based Earth Island Institute.

Nevertheless, Mesta said 5-year-old condors in the wild are growing up and starting to act like true wild animals. They are finding their own food and flying farther from the spots where they were released.

Now, scientists say condors are approaching a crossroads that will determine whether they can breed and thrive in nature. For the first time, scientists have observed classic condor courtship behavior in the wild--in two pairs of birds living in the Santa Barbara County back country.

“When they get the first reproduction in the wild, that’s an important turning point. It’ll be almost like they’ll be home free,” Garrett said.

Last December, a condor identified as 07 sauntered up to lady condor 08, bobbing his head, spreading his wings and making a clumsy attempt to mate with her. Male 00 made a similar pass at another female. Because condors don’t mate until about age 6, researchers hope the courtship displays last year culminate in breeding next year.

“I thought they were going to disappear from the face of the earth in the 1970s,” said Brian Walton, director of the Predatory Bird Research Group at UC Santa Cruz. “If you told anyone in the ‘60s we would be looking at 150 condors, a large successful breeding program and birds in several states, they never would have believed it.”

The future for condors, however, may reside far from Southern California. Federal wildlife officials are deliberately moving them away from urban centers. California may be condors’ historical home, but development is fouling their nest.

“These mountain ridges in California have historically been good flight routes and they still are, only today the ridges are covered in houses,” Mesta said. “Fifty years ago there was nothing there. It was condor country. Now people are there.”

In mid-January, six birds are tentatively scheduled for release at the 100,000-acre Wind Wolves Preserve near Maricopa in Kern County. The Fish and Wildlife Service has asked the Turner Endangered Species Fund for permission to release condors at two sprawling ranches CNN magnate Ted Turner owns in New Mexico.

Negotiations are under way with Mexican officials to transplant condors to Baja California. In Northern California, Mesta said the condor recovery team is looking at a potential release site in Tehama County.

“You can just watch the release sites moving away from the Los Angeles area,” Garrett said.

Mesta defends the strategy on the grounds that condors were once a transcontinental species. “To be successful, we’re going to have to put a lot of birds out over a very wide area,” Mesta said.

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Condor Comeback

California condors are rebounding after nearly becoming extinct 16 years ago. Record numbers of juveniles are being bred in captivity and released, more are surviving outdoors and some appear ready to mate in the wild. Condors remain the most imperiled bird in the nation, but scientists are increasingly optimistic about their chances for recovery.

Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife service