Condors go back into the wild at Pinnacles National Monument

My story on the condors at Pinnacles National Monument is out - in both the Santa Cruz Sentinel and the SF Chronicle. The stories give visitors an idea of what to expect when going to Pinnacles to see California condors during a release of 5 young birds that are joining the already existing Pinnacles flock. The release date of April 21 will mark almost to the day the 20th year anniversary of the capture of the last wild condor. To get tips on viewing them, read the article.

I wasn't able to go into as much detail as I would have liked in the articles simply because of word count and scope, but the story of the condor is fascinating. It is generally accepted to be an ecologically unimportant species, and yet we have spent millions of dollars and incredible effort trying to save it. It has been a hot button issue for environmentalists, many of whom (particularly David Brower) thought that the last wild condors should never have been captured in the first place, even though there were only 22 birds left and the species was facing almost certain extinction. Those extremists believe that the species died when the last one was captured, because they officially ceased to be wild.

Then there is another camp of people, led by Noel Snyder, who believe that the birds in captivity should never have been released back into the wild, since whatever it was that was killing the birds is still out there in the environment. We now know with near certainty, thanks to a UCSC study, that the leading killer of condors is lead from ammunition, which shatters when it hits the bones of hunted animals, whose carcasses are then fed on by condors. Lead poisoning first dulls the birds' reactions (which might be leading them to their second most lethal habit: flying into power lines), then makes them more and more lethargic until they eventually stop eating, stop moving, and die. In spite of the facts that lead is a threat to many animals, including humans, and that there are safe, equally effective, non-lead alternatives, hunters continue to use lead bullets. So we are releasing the birds into an environment that is continuing to poison them.

The condor recovery program is succeeding in its growth of the species thanks in large part to captive breeding (which through a process called double clutching allows the birds to reproduce faster than in nature), but whether the birds will continue to prosper when humans stop tracking them and treating them for lead poisoning remains to be seen. If you're interested in the topic, I highly recommend reading John Nielsen's book: Condor, to the Brink and Back. Not only is it a comprehensive study of the condor recovery program, but it is beautifully written, narrating the tales of the individual people working with individual birds to save the species.