Condors deserve our respect and our best conservation efforts. Many readers know this creature in-depth, but some may not know just how fast and how high a condor can fly or how many eggs are in a clutch or the origin of the condor’s scientific name. Perhaps this lofty bird deserves a moment of our time to teach us some condor basics…and some really cool tidbits about their lifestyle.

DIET: The California Condor’s diet consists of medium and large-sized dead mammals like cattle, sheep, deer, and horses in any state of decay. Condors may travel several hundred miles in search of food.

REPRODUCTION: Condors nest in a cave or cleft among boulders on a cliff or hillside. The female will lay the single egg directly on the floor of the cave. The egg is incubated for 54 - 58 days. The young condor learns to fly in about 6 months, but will stay with its parents for several more months. The extended “childhood” of young birds prevents adult condors from breeding annually. California condors usually become sexually mature at 6 years of age.

NAME DERIVATION: The scientific name Gymnogyps californianus comes from the Greek word gymnast, meaning naked, and refers to the head; gyps is Greek for a vulture; and the Latinized word for California indicates the bird’s range. The name condor is from the Spanish word cuntur, and is the Inca name given to the Andean condor. California condors have also been called a California vulture.

Cool Facts

• California Condors are social birds and they spend a great deal of time feeding and roosting together.
• They were originally classified in the same genus as the Andean condor (V. gryphus), but, due to the Andean condor’s slightly different markings, slightly longer wings, and tendency to actually kill small animals to eat, the California condor has now been placed in its own monotypic genus.
• They have been known to fly up to speeds of 90 km/h (55 mph) and as high as 4,600 meters (15,000 ft). They prefer to roost on high perches from which they can launch without any major wing-flapping effort. Often, these birds are seen soaring near rock cliffs, using thermals to aid them in keeping aloft.
• The California Condor normally dominates other scavengers and usually does not hesitate to take a carcass away from smaller species. The exception is when a golden eagle is present. Although the condor weighs about twice as much as an eagle, the superior talons of the eagle command respect.
• The California condor lays only one egg in a brood. The young is dependent upon the parents for more than one year, and consequently condor pairs usually breed only in every other year.
• Young condors do not breed until they are six to eight years old, about the time they acquire full adult coloration.

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Ventana Wildlife Society is the only not-for-profit organization releasing and managing condors in the wild in California. Your help is urgently needed at this time to help us overcome the setback of the fire and continue the momentum of restoring condors to their natural habitat.

As of today, our biologists have been able to track the radio signals from all but one of the 43 free-flying adult condors that VWS has surviving in the central California region. As for the newly hatched chicks, one of three wild nests was in a burned area, although we don’t yet know the fate of the chick inside. Two other nests were very near the fire but the chicks inside survived. On July 8, we were finally able to review the damages and determine that we lost all of the field pens in Big Sur for releasing the young condors along with important equipment.

Please consider making a generous gift to the Condor Emergency Fund at VWS. With your partnership, we can replace our lost equipment and supplies and support our biologists and loyal volunteers at this challenging time. In the months ahead, we will rebuild the condor release program as well as protect and maintain the health and safety of the wild flock in Big Sur. You can help us now by going to www.ventanaws.org or calling toll-free 877-897-7740 and pledging your support.

As a member, you will receive continued updates on the progress the California condors as well as our other projects to protect and restore wildlife and their habitats. It is thanks to the past generosity of our supporters and to partnerships with other dedicated organizations that visitors from all over the world now see wild condors soaring above the mountains of Big Sur. Our vision is to see this flock grow and prosper so it becomes permanent and self-sustaining – and no longer endangered.

Kelly Sorenson, Executive Director

Ventana Wildlife Society

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Our sixth chick hatched this season needed a little keeper help getting out of its shell. We had noticed early on during development that the embryo was positioned incorrectly inside the egg. On day 54 of incubation, the egg was taken to the Harter Veterinary Medical Center, here on grounds, and was radio graphed to determine the position of the chick. The x-ray film confirmed that the chick in fact was positioned upside-down inside the egg and gave us a good idea of where the chick might first break the eggshell and start breathing fresh air.

When getting ready to hatch, chicks normally first break the shell, or “pip,” towards the rounder end of the egg. Since this chick was completely upside-down it actually pipped towards the pointier end. We monitored it around the clock for three days and observed that, even though it was very active and vocal, the chick had made no more progress towards hatching. At 72 hours from the time it had pipped, two of us keepers very carefully removed the eggshell from around the chick and excitedly welcomed it into the world. This sixth chick is named Awexa (say “ah-WE-ha”), which means “Bee” in Chumash. Awexa is eating and growing very well. This chick is being puppet-raised and will hopefully be released in Baja California, Mexico, along with its older sibling, Aqshwalaw, as well as Sitow and Yinci, our other 2008 puppet-raised chicks.

Our last egg of the season was placed back with its parents, Towich (condor No. 135) and Sulu (condor No. 52) after it pipped, and finished hatching (with Sulu’s assistance). This chick is named Sola (say “SO-lah”), which means “Soda” in Chumash. Towich and Sulu are very attentive parents and are doing a wonderful job raising their 5^th chick hatched since they were paired together for the 2004 breeding season.

All of our new chicks are doing great, and they are keeping us keepers and their parents very busy. DNA samples have been submitted for our chicks to determine their gender. The next milestone for our chicks is to leave the nest and fledge. This happens at about 150 days old, depending on each individual and on the way each is raised. This has been an amazing season for our condors and their keepers; let’s hope it continues to be a great year.

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Consequently, the wind conditions within a condor’s habitat are likely one of the principle determinants of condor foraging ability, which is why condor introduction programs have been sited in mountainous regions with strong updrafts. Enhanced understanding of the meteorological conditions that determine the flying ability and foraging success of condors is vital to tailoring reintroduction programs to the bird’s habitat needs. No formal analysis of the characteristics of the winds that shape condor movements has yet been conducted.

We recently installed the first of an array of remote weatherstations that will be placed throughout the expanding ranges of the condors that are being reintroduced to Baja California, Mexico. The units include an anemometer to measure wind speed and direction and a thermometer to measure air temperature. The weather data is stored in a data recorder and can be downloaded at the end of the recording period (limited to about six months of memory capacity) using a handheld shuttle. Rather than choosing arbitrary locations, the sites where the weatherstation are to be installed were selected by overlaying the home ranges of 14 birds that were GPS-tracked for three years. This way the climate data we record will be taken from habitats that have actually been used intensively by the birds themselves. The big challenge to our team is that the weatherstation sites are in very remote and inaccessible areas, which presents considerable logistic difficulties for equipment installation and data acquisition.

The site for the installation of our first weatherstation was only half a mile from the Baja base camp, which certainly made it easy for us to carry the units and all of the equipment needed to set them up. Once at the site we selected a suitable tree on which to mount the weather sensors. The stations must be installed well off the ground to sample the strongest wind flows while minimizing ground-based turbulence and interference. We also need the units to be high enough to deter interference by curious animals (and curious people!). We needed climbing ropes and harnesses to bolt the unit 33 feet (10 meters) off the ground onto the main trunk of the tree. This was not an easy task, and was complicated by the fact that each unit must also be precisely calibrated to compass directions, often while the units were recording wind velocities of more than 33 feet (10 meters) per second.

The second weatherstation was placed at Venado Blanco, at the crest of a steep ridge overlooking a series of valleys back toward the condor campsite, which was about three miles to the southwest. The reintroduced condors have been tracked coming to this site many times over the past three years, and during our journey to the site we encountered a herd of deer and noticed the hoof prints of cattle and scats from various animals – the kinds of things that attract inquisitive and hungry condors. Getting to the Venado Blanco site required some serious off-roading and a hike with the weatherstations and their installation equipment across steep chaparral covered slopes.

The site itself was a picturesque study in contrasts, with colorful desert flowers in bloom beneath blackened pine trees that had been scarred by numerous lightening strikes and wildfires. The frequent storm activity in the area is of particular concern, since a high voltage blast of static electricity could have some serious negative consequences for one of our little weatherstations! To reduce the possibility of lightening strike we grounded our units to a long copper rod that we hammered into the ground. Needless to say, trying to find sufficient earth in which to hammer a six-foot rod into in a rocky granite peak also presented a physical challenge.

The remaining weatherstations are soon to be installed across the remote eastern canyons of the Baja reintroduction site that face the open deserts towards the Gulf of California. This network of canyons includes Picacho Del Diablo, which is the steepest peak in Baja. The sheer difficulty of reaching these sites necessitates the incorporation of a remote data uplink system into the weatherstations, to beam the climate data directly to us via a satellite modem. Once installed, we will be able to access the weather information provided by the units via the Internet. By matching the wind conditions and air temperatures with the movement patterns of the ranging condors we will be able to build an extensive and accurate picture of the environmental factors that shape condor habitat use and foraging success. This is another example of how cutting-edge technology can contribute highly valuable information to enhance management programs designed to conserve threatened species.

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Ultimately, 11 eggs were laid here at the Wild Animal Park. Eight were fertile and three were infertile. Of the fertile eggs, one died very early in development (perhaps after the first few days of growth) and five have hatched. We’re still waiting for the other two. One is due at the end of May, while the last egg is due in the middle of June.

Of the three infertile eggs, one was produced by a pair of younger birds – this sometimes happens when birds are gaining nesting experience- and two were laid by a bird that was not housed with a male. This was our big surprise of the season! Itaxmay, our mentor for the Baja-bound condors laid two eggs while she was housed with three young birds waiting to be shipped to Mexico for release. Normally, Itaxmay and the Baja cohort are housed in a facility deep in the backcountry of the Wild Animal Park. The wildfire burned through their large flight pen and it wasn’t safe to return them after the fire. So, they were housed in our breeding facility, which is equipped with a nesting chamber. With access to this chamber, and stimulated by the courtship displays of the pair housed in the pen next door, Itaxmay surprised us all by laying her first egg – and her second one was laid 30 days later!

The five chicks that have already hatched are all healthy and growing quickly. Three are being puppet-raised and should eventually be released in Baja California. Two others are being raised by their parents and may be released in either California or Arizona.

The oldest puppet-raised chick is named Sitow (say “SEE-toe”), which means, “to cleanse with smoke from burning sage” in Chumash. Sitow was the first chick to hatch after the fire. The second chick is Yinci (say “YIN-see”), a Chumash word for “to get hot.” Aqshwalaw (say “ahk-SHWAH-lah”) hatched from an egg that was laid on Valentine’s Day, so we thought it appropriate to name it the Chumash word for “love.”

The two chicks being parent-raised are named Oxkon (say “OH-cone”) and Ich-Ich (say “EECH-eech”). They are also both Chumash words; Oxkon means “thunder” and Ich-Ich means “younger sibling.” Sitow and Oxkon are siblings, as are Yinci and Ich-Ich.

We’ll keep you posted on the last two eggs, as well as progress on all of the chicks’ growth. Stay tuned!

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What about humans who eat game killed by lead bullets? A Peregrine Fund study sampled 30 white-tailed deer killed under normal hunting conditions in northern Wyoming with standard lead-core, copper-jacketed bullets fired from a high-powered rifle. X-Rays of all 30 deer showed widespread dispersal of lead fragments in the carcasses, ranging in size from smaller than a grain of salt to the size of a sesame seed.

Even after the meat was processed for standard preparation of ground meat and boneless steaks, there were still lead fragments in the packaged meat!

“Our results suggest that people may frequently ingest metallic lead when they consume deer killed with lead-based bullets and processed by normal procedures,” said Rick Watson, vice president of The Peregrine Fund. “We have known for years that lead residues from bullets poison birds of prey and other scavengers…now it appears that this dangerous contaminant exists in food that people eat as well.”

In 2007, 80 percent of hunters voluntarily switched to non-lead ammunition in condor country or removed deer gut piles after learning about the effects of lead on condors. Condor deaths dropped from four in 2006 to none in 2007.

“We believe that copper bullets will become the ammunition of choice for hunters to benefit themselves, their families, and wildlife,” Watson added.

Thanks to the California condors, the human food supply of venison will be much safer.

For the full press release, please click here.

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Nest guarding means that we have chosen to take an active and direct role in increasing chances of successfully fledging chicks from wild nests. This effort increases the number of wild fledged condors in the population and increases chances of future nests’ success by the breeding pairs. These wild fledge chicks tend to integrate into the wild population quicker than their counterparts raised at the breeding centers, due to being led by their parents from their natal areas and guided out to forage sites. Entering nest sites to prevent failures also allows us to collect important information about why and how nest failure has taken place in the past. This information will be crucial to discovering long-term solutions to the breakdown in nesting attempts and further aid in recovery of the species in the wild.

The first two interventions needed have been in the form of egg transplants. An egg transplant is the process by which an unhealthy or infertile egg is removed from the nest and replaced with a model or dummy egg. This dummy egg keeps the pair attentive to the nest until a healthy egg from one of the breeding centers begins to hatch. This hatching egg is quickly swapped out with the model egg. The pair then becomes the foster parents of a new chick, which usually finishes hatching in a day or two. Allowing the pairs to continue in their nesting attempt increases chances of success in future years because they can continue to gain experience in chick rearing behaviors and strengthen the bond they share as parents.

The first egg transplant occurred at the nest of condors 79 and 247. Having performed a fertility check on this first-time pair we were hopeful that this pair’s egg would hatch on its own, but this was not the case. After observers failed to see it hatch beyond its due date, a nest entry team was sent in to take a closer look. This team consisted of Mike Clark, a Los Angeles Zoo condor handler and I.

During the hatching process, the chick can sometimes become incapable of freeing itself from the confines of its shell and the condor parents assist in this process. If this was the case on this entry we could also assist in the process, unfortunately when we arrived at the nest we found that the egg’s development was interrupted before it came close to hatching. This can occur for a number of reasons and our best chance of determining why would be to collect the egg and take a closer look by sending the egg to the San Diego Zoo’s Pathology Lab.

We left a dummy egg for condor No. 79, who took to it like it was her own (see video below). I returned the following day with an egg from the Los Angeles Zoo that was beginning to hatch. On March 28, a day and a half after completing the transplant the first wild chick of the season was hatched and the parents are dutifully caring for the young condor.

Condors 107 and 161 chose a difficult nest to observe this season. The cavity is very dark and when the birds enter it they disappear from view. The egg is never visible so an entry was necessary in order to determine hatch. After a few days past the hatch date we entered the nest to check. While we anticipated finding a chick, unfortunately the egg had also failed to hatch. We contacted our partners at the breeding facilities to locate the next available egg that would be ready to hatch to place into this nest site. It took transporting an egg all the way from the Peregrine Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise Idaho.

This egg was due to hatch 20 days beyond the pair’s original egg’s hatch date. Incubating condors will usually tend their nest beyond the normal period of 57 days that it takes a condor egg to hatch but their behavior can become less and less predictable as time passes. There was a risk the pair would lose interest and abandon the dummy egg so nest observers closely tracked the behavior of the pair to determine whether they were showing any signs of abandonment.

The route to this nest site is one of the most challenging to access especially when having to take extra care in transporting a hatching egg. Condor country is some of the most difficult terrain to travel through on foot. The steep canyons scattered with poison oak often require ropes to bypass, and the thick vegetation can force you to a crawl for hundreds of meters through thick chaparral and shrub lands. Dropping many hundreds of feet in elevation down one side of a canyon and climbing up the other side to position ourselves above the nest was a difficult endeavor. Luckily, the nest was a short 20 foot rappel down a 200 foot cliff.

The nest cavity is one of the largest I’ve ever seen. It is close to 20 feet at it deepest and 15 feet at it’s widest. There are spots that I was able to stand up completely straight inside the nest cave. It is no wonder we could not see the egg as it was far back inside the cavity. The female perches in a nearby tree closely watching me as I disappear into her cavity. As I swap eggs the chick noisily makes its presence known:

Condor 161, hearing the chick inside the egg, enters the nest and is interested in the noisy egg. She watches me closely as I ascend back to the top of the nest cliff. Once there, I take cover out of sight until the nest observer radios to tell me she has disappeared into the cavity. She does so after about 20 minutes of standing at the cavity entrance probably trying to determine if I plan on returning. While I am waiting I can still hear the hatching chick from time to time calling for her attention. When it is clear that I am no longer a threat she disappears into the darkness of the cavity and tends to her nest for the next three hours straight.

It will take the chick about two more days to completely hatch from the egg. Condor 161 tends to the nest for the rest of the day and through the night. The following day, her mate, condor 107, returns from a foraging trip and exchanges with condor 161. We will probably not see the chick until its 30-day checkup but the pair’s feeding behavior and continual attendance is a sure sign of a successful hatch and our second wild chick of the season.

Program Wide Support…

The Los Angeles Zoo and the Peregrine Fund helped save these wild nests from failure by supplying hatching eggs to put into wild nest sites, but any of the breeding programs (San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park and/or Oregon Zoo) would have given their support. Normally these eggs would have hatched at these centers and gone on to become condors that we could one day release. Instead these chicks will fledge as if they were wild chicks with parents that will care for them and teach them the skills needed for survival in the wild. The incredible teamwork by recovery program staff and the contributions of countless volunteers’ hours has brought us two chicks closer to another successful breeding season and another step towards recovery of this magnificent species.

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More Nests…

Through the winter months searching for wild condor nest sites yielded one new nest in February, two in March, as well as a surprise nest in April. After a hectic few months Southern California now has five active condor nest sites!

Our population’s most dominant male, condor No. 107 and his mate, Ventana’s condor 161, have committed to their fourth nesting attempt. The pair successfully fledged a chick in 2004, tragically lost a chick at the nest in 2006 and in 2007 they fledged a chick that died shortly after a devastating wildfire passed through the region. We have high hopes that this pair will fledge their chick once again this season.

The first wild egg laid in March was by condor No. 289. This nest took some effort to find in the remote canyons of the Sespe Condor Sanctuary, a large tract of wilderness set aside by the U.S. Forest Service to protect condor-nesting habitat. No. 289, the youngest condor of breeding age this season, has chosen one of our populations oldest males, condor 98. She will be his fourth mate since his first nesting attempt in 2002 and we hope they will prove to be a successful pairing.

The next breeding pair of the season is a 7-year-old male, condor 237, and an 8-year-old female, No. 214. They were the foster parents of the 2006 fledgling, No. 412, the second chick to fledge from a wild nest in California. Condor 412’s success was a result of a change in nest management strategies to enhance nest success in the wild and has resulted in the development of the nest-guarding program.

The fifth nest of the season came as bit of a surprise nearly a month later. Condors 111 & 125, which successfully fledged No. 450 in 2007, were still actively caring for this young bird. Quite suddenly, they were no longer being observed with condor 450. She had only recently left her parents’ nesting territory. To our great surprise, we discovered 111 in a cavity incubating a newly laid egg. While it is uncommon for condors to nest in consecutive years it has been known to occur in the wild. We eventually located condor 450 at a supplemental feeding site 45 miles away from her natal area in Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge interacting with other juveniles within the population. This is a benchmark towards her independence as she will begin to fend for herself at roosting and feeding sites with the many juveniles condors that frequent this refuge.

It is a time reminiscent of the period of pre-in house managed care program, with a total of seven active nests in California. Of the seven nests sites, five are in Southern California and two are located along the central California coast.

Stay tuned for Part II when Joseph enters a nest with an egg.

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