Update from Pinnacles: Baby condor removed to urgent care

Those of you who eagerly read about the baby condor born at Pinnacles  will be sad to hear the latest news. The 50+ day old chick had excessive levels of lead in its body, and after attempting to treat it in the nest, biologists decided that the chick had to be removed to urgent care if it was going to live. The parents were also tested, and it was discovered that the father condor also had high lead levels and was removed to the Los Angeles Zoo for emergency care.

This just shows how delicate this program is. While the condors are slowly coming back, it seems that we haven't cleaned up our environment enough to provide safe food in the wild for them.

Let's be clear. This is more than a question of the future of this unique bird that has flown the earth since prehistoric times. Yes, once a species is lost, it's lost forever. And as Prince says, forever is a mighty long time. But it's also a question of what humans are doing to the earth to make it uninhabitable for other species.  

Which leads to a profoundly important question: if our world is poisoned for other animals, is it also poisoned for us? Lead poisoning is well documented as effecting humans, especially children, causing learning disabilities, mental retardation, and even death in extreme cases.

Why can't we recognize that taking care of the environment is also taking care of ourselves?  Sorry, I know I'm on a soapbox here, but I can't help it.

Please - if you hunt - choose bullets that don't have lead in them. It's such an easy choice for a big environmental payoff.

Here's the press release from Pinnacles, in its entirety:

  Pinnacles National Monument                  News Release

Release:          FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Release Date:     05/13/2010
Contact:
      Daniel George, Condor Program Manager, Pinnacles National Monument
      daniel_george@nps.gov
   Kelly Sorenson, Executive Director, Ventana Wildlife Society:
      kellysorenson@ventanaws.org


Wild Condor Chick Evacuated from Pinnacles National Monument due to Lead

Exposure




Pinnacles National Monument – Condor biologists at Pinnacles National


Monument and Ventana Wildlife Society tracking the health of a wild condor


nestling (chick) in the park discovered last week that the bird had


extremely high levels of lead in its blood. Park Service biologists then


trapped the parent male, condor 318, and discovered he also has toxic


levels of lead in his blood.





    The adult condor was immediately taken to the Los Angeles Zoo for


chelation (a treatment to remove lead from the body) while the 50-day old


chick was treated by veterinarians and condor biologists in the nest during


early morning climbs into the rocky cliff cavern.





    Although the adult female continued to care for its young and the


nestling received several emergency chelation and hydrating fluid


injections, the young condor’s health degraded further.  As a result,


biologists decided yesterday that, for the survival of the nestling, it


needed to be evacuated for intensive care.





    National Park Service and Ventana Wildlife Society biologists are


trying to trap the adult female of this pair to determine if she too has


been exposed to lead.





    Hundreds of park visitors over the past two months have enjoyed the


rare opportunity to witness an active condor nest in the wild. For those


interested in expressing thoughts on this story, please visit the Pinnacles


National Monument website, www.nps.gov/pinn, and use the “Contact Us” link.







    This condor nest was the first inside Pinnacles National Monument


since re-establishment efforts began there in 2003 and the first documented


nest in the park in over one hundred years.





    Pinnacles National Monument will keep the temporary closure area


around the nest in place until biologists determine whether the nestling


can be returned to the wild.








Additional Facts


  Parent Condor 318 was originally released along the Big Sur coast by


     Ventana Wildlife Society, while parent condor 317 was released at


     Pinnacles National Monument.


  The National Park Service and Ventana Wildlife Society collaborate to


     manage the central California flock of 52 condors.


  More information on the National Park Service program can be found at:


     www.nps.gov/pinn/naturescience/condors


  More information on Ventana Wildlife Society’s program can be found at:


     www.ventanaws.org/species_condors


  Chelation is a process used in condors in which calcium EDTA, a chemical


     that binds with heavy metals, is injected into the animals to prevent


     retention of lead in the tissues.


  Condors are exclusively scavengers, feeding on a wide range of dead


     mammals.


  Hunting plays a key role in the condor ecology by generating food


     resources for these critically endangered scavengers.


  Prior research has established that the principle source of lead


     exposures among condors is lead ammunition. For more information,


     see: www.ucsc.edu/news_events/press_releases/text.asp?pid=927


  Shooters who have made the switch to non-lead ammunition have made an


     invaluable contribution to the health of scavenging wildlife.


  Lead Ammunition has been banned in a wide region of central and southern


     California. For more information, please see:


     www.dfg.ca.gov/wildlife/hunting/condor


  There are four captive rearing facilities involved in Condor Recovery –


     The Los Angeles Zoo, The San Diego Wild Animal Park, The Oregon Zoo,


     and the Peregrine Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise,


     Idaho


  There are five condor release sites in western North America – Pinnacles


     National Monument operated by the National Park Service, Big Sur


     Coast operated by the Ventana Wildlife Society, Bitter Creek National


     Wildlife Refuge operated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service,


     Vermillion Cliffs operated by the Peregrine Fund, and El Parque


     Nacional San Pedro Mártir in Baja California – a joint venture of the


     Zoological Society of San Diego and several Mexican agencies and


     organizations.


  Video information related to condor recovery efforts at Pinnacles


     national Monument can be found at:


     www.nps.gov/pinn/naturescience/condor_video

Baby condor born at Pinnacles - and you can see the nest!

Birth announcement! A condor has been born at Pinnacles National Monument. For anyone who has followed the saga of the condor, this is exciting news. This is the 49th chick to be born in the wild since the program began, good progress for the  program.

Perhaps most exciting for fellow Bay Area travelers is that the nest is visible to hikers at Pinnacles. That's a rare treat.

The California condor is a huge, prehistoric-looking bird that almost went extinct, but is slowly being revived through captive breeding and releases in protected areas that are part of its historical territory.

The condor program has been expensive, controversial, and difficult. Some staunch environmentalists opposed it from the beginning, because the program required capturing the last of the free, wild condors in order to create a captive breeding program that would eventually get the condors back into the wild. There's no doubt that without that drastic step, the condor would have died out by now.

The greatest risks to the condor currently come from lead poisoning. So if you happen to be a hunter, please, for the sake of condors (and your family, assuming you eat the game), don't use lead bullets. There are alternatives. But that's another story.

If you'd like to make the trek to Pinnacles, be sure to take your binoculars, and stop in at the visitor's center to ask directions. The nest is visible from Scout Peak bench on the High Peaks Trail. It's only a two mile hike in, but it's strenuous, with 1100 - 1200 feet elevation gain depending on whether you approach from the east or the west. Note that the area immediately around the nest is closed to visitors for the time being.

Happy baby bird watching!

Condor found dead at Pinnacles

It's a sad day. One of the newly released condors at Pinnacles has been found dead, lying on its back in a field. The juvenile bird had been feeding and roosting normally since it took its first flight into freedom less than a month ago. They don't have any clues as to why the bird died, but presumably they'll find something out in the autopsy.

So hats off and a moment of silence. These birds may not have any ecological value, but they are symbolic for our wilderness. When one of them dies, it's a step in the wrong direction.

Driving to Pinnacles

Yesterday, I got up at 5am to drive down to Pinnacles National Monument to meet with a condor biologist. Leaving the house at 6:30am, I took Kings Mountain Road down the hill, hugging the hillside on this narrow road (a remnant from logging days) and devouring occasional glimpses of the valley as the sun was rising, a sliver of a crescent moon hanging in the corner of the sky just over San Jose or Palo Alto or somewhere in between the two. The camera itched at my side in the passenger seat, but I couldn't allow myself to scratch it. I had an appointment to keep.

South of San Jose, as Highway 101 narrowed and became less interstate-like, the urban sprawl gave way to open space. The sun was higher, but it was still casting that golden, early morning glow over everything. The hills were rumpled sheets of green velvet, shimmering in the sun in some places with shades of darker green on the west slopes that the sun hadn't touched yet.

Turning off Highway 101 and onto Highway 25 towards Hollister, I drove through a cherry orchard that was just this side of its peak bloom. The white petals fluttered in the breeze of trees in perfectly symmetrical rows that seemed to go on forever and ever. Hollister appeared like a remnant of the past, with its downtown storefronts, now offering quinceanera dresses that billow out like gowns that Southern belles wore before the war. Then the new Hollister stretched out to meet me, wider roads with fast food and the usual suspects of chain stores.

But beyond Hollister, as I got closer and closer to Pinnacles, the road got narrower and windier. The country got more country, with windmills and cattle and more remote velvet hills. Birds of prey soared above me, some type of hawk I've never seen before, larger than the redtails I know closer to home. I pulled into Pinnacles with a feeling of the most pleasant kind of anxiety building up in my chest. I was going to be looking for a California condor, a bird that had dwindled to some 20-odd specimens just 20 years ago and had almost disappeared from the face of the earth.

You'll have to wait and find out later what I discovered there, though. I'm still writing the articles. ;-)