“We just finished a campaign for Zoo Mother of the Year, and found it was a fun way to initiate a relationship between the public and the highlighted animals,” said Tony Vecchio, zoo director. “As the public reads about the nominees, all of which belong to species that are either threatened or endangered, we hope they’ll come to understand and care about the challenges facing these animals in the wild.”

On-line votes will be accepted until 5 p.m. Thursday, June 12. The zoo will announce its 2008 Zoo Father of the Year Friday, June 13, at 10 a.m. The zoo is a service of Metro and is dedicated to its mission to inspire the community to create a better future for wildlife. Committed to conservation, the zoo is currently working to save endangered California condors, Washington’s pygmy rabbits, Oregon silverspot butterflies, western pond turtles, Oregon spotted frogs and Kincaid’s lupine. Other projects include studies on black rhinos, Asian elephants, polar bears and bats.

The zoo opens at 9 a.m. daily and is located five minutes from downtown Portland, just off Highway 26. The zoo is also accessible by MAX light rail line. Zoo visitors are encouraged to ride MAX or take TriMet bus No. 63 to the Oregon Zoo. Visitors who take the bus or MAX receive $1 off zoo admission. Call TriMet Customer Service, 503-238-RIDE (7433), or visit www.trimet.org for fare and route information.

General admission is $9.75 (12-64), seniors $8.25 (65+), children $6.75 (3-11), and infants 2 and under are free; 25 cents of the admission price helps fund regional conservation projects through the zoo’s Future for Wildlife program. A parking fee of $1 per car is also required. Additional information is available at www.oregonzoo.org or by calling 503-226-1561.

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Contacts: Bill LaMarche 503-220-2448 (office) or 503-497-5812 (pager)
Linda D’Ae-Smith 503-220-5716 (office) or 503-441-7573 (pager)

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In the early hours of May 7, zoo staff worked feverishly to hatch the underweight and shell-bound bird. Monitoring the egg at the zoo’s Jonsson enter for Wildlife Conservation, keepers determined it would not be able to hatch alone. Fearing the chick would suffocate, they stepped in and helped, worst-case scenario for them. The chick was removed from the nesting room and immediately transferred to an indoor facility, where keepers broke away part of the shell and removed the chick.

“The hatch went well, but it was an extremely small chick, our lowest watch-weight yet,” said Shawn St. Michael, Oregon Zoo condor curator. “It is common for chicks to be pretty quiet for the first 24 hours after hatch. It’s an exhausting process. But we became concerned when this chick failed to perk up the way we would expect after his rest.”

St. Michael and condor keepers provided around-the-clock care, administering antibiotics and enlisting the help of an adult condor, Nootka, for a life-saving blood donation.

“Thanks to the hard work of our staff, this chick is looking good now, and we expect it will be just fine,” said St. Michael. “The chick will be puppet-reared by human foster parents and later mentored by another adult
condor.”

The assisted hatch is the fourth successful hatch of 2008, with one more expected in early June.

To see a video of the condor chick’s dramatic assisted hatch, visit www.oregonzoo.org/VideoArchive/CondorHatch.htm

The Oregon Zoo’s condor recovery efforts take place at the Jonsson Center for Wildlife Conservation, located in rural Clackamas County on Metro-owned open space. The remoteness of the facility minimizes the exposure of young condors to people, increasing the chances for captive-hatched birds to survive and breed in the wild.

The Jonsson Center is currently home to 30 condors. The center has produced 15 eggs since it was established and 14 chicks have hatched.

In 2001, the Oregon Zoo became the third zoo in the nation to join the California Condor Recovery Program. California condor captive-breeding programs are also operated at San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park, the Los Angeles Zoo and the Peregrine Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey. The Oregon Zoo was the recipient of The Wildlife Society’s Conservation Award for “creating the nation’s fourth California condor breeding facility” in April 2005.

For more information about the Oregon Zoo’s California condors, visit http://www.oregonzoo.org/Condors/index.htm. For Oregon Zoo condor biographies, visit http://www.oregonzoo.org/Condors/condorBios.htm.

Condors, the largest land birds in North America, have wingspans of up to 10 feet and weigh 18 to 30 pounds. They are highly intelligent and inquisitive, often engaging in play. During the Pleistocene Era, which ended about 10,000 years ago, condors’ range extended across much of North America. By 1940, that range had been reduced to the coastal mountains of Southern California, and in 1967 condors were added to the first federal list of endangered species. In 1987, the 17 condors remaining in the wild were brought into captivity and a captive-breeding program was developed.

The zoo is a service of Metro and is dedicated to its mission to inspire the community to create a better future for wildlife. Committed to conservation, the zoo is currently working to save Washington’s pygmy rabbits, Oregon silverspot butterflies, western pond turtles, Oregon spotted frogs and Kincaid’s lupine, in addition to California condors. Other projects include studies on black rhinos, Asian elephants, polar bears and bats.

The zoo opens at 9 a.m. daily and is located five minutes from downtown Portland, just off Highway 26. The zoo is also accessible by MAX light rail line. Zoo visitors are encouraged to ride MAX or take TriMet bus No. 63 to the Oregon Zoo. Visitors who take the bus or MAX receive $1 off zoo admission. Call TriMet Customer Service, 503-238-RIDE (7433), or visit www.trimet.org for fare and route information.

General admission is $9.75 (12-64), seniors $8.25 (65+), children $6.75 (3-11), and infants 2 and under are free; 25 cents of the admission price helps fund regional conservation projects through the zoo’s Future for Wildlife program. A parking fee of $1 per car is also required. Additional information is available at www.oregonzoo.org or by calling 503-226-1561.

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Oregon Zoo ̈ 4001 SW Canyon Rd. ̈ Portland, Oregon 97221 ̈ 503-226-1561

Contacts: Bill LaMarche 503-220-2448 (office) or 503-497-5812 (pager)
Linda D’Ae-Smith 503-220-5716 (office) or 503-441-7573 (pager)

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The third egg to hatch produced a condor named Sespe (say “SESS-pee”). She hatched May 25, 1983 and, at the time of her hatching, was only the 26^th condor in existence. Her parents were known as the Red Rock pair; mom is Tama (see her blog entry from April 7, 2008) and dad was a bird known as CCM (Castaic Creek Male). Sespe has spent the majority of her life at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park, but from 1984 to 1992 she lived at the Los Angeles Zoo.

Sespe was paired with a male named AC-4 for ten years. She has laid 19 eggs, resulting in 14 chicks. Three of her chicks are part of the captive breeding population – 1 at the Oregon Zoo, 1 at the Wild Animal Park, and 1 at the Peregrine Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho. Five others are flying free as part of the release program – 1 in southern California, 3 in central California, and 1 in northern Arizona.

Sespe is not currently in a breeding pair. In 2002, it was discovered that her genetic line was robust, so she and AC-4 were separated to prevent any genetic over-representation in the captive condor population. Two of Sespe’s sisters were also separated from their mates. In the future Sespe will be paired with another male to once again produce chicks to be released to the wild. For now, she is the star of the Condor Ridge exhibit at the Wild Animal Park. She lives with a male named Meymey and a juvenile male name Nikoy. Often, during the summer, Sespe will perch near the pool where she enjoys a shower from her keepers. Then, Wild Animal Park guests can truly appreciate a condor’s size when she suns herself afterward.

Next time you are at the Wild Animal Park, stop by to wish Sespe a Happy Hatchday as you witness a piece of living history of California and the Condor Recovery Program.

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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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“X-rays revealed that processed ground venison from 80 percent of the deer sampled in the research contained metal fragments,” said Rick Watson, vice president of The Peregrine Fund, a raptor conservation organization. Further tests revealed that 92 percent of those metal particles were lead.

“This is one more piece of evidence that points to lead bullets as a source of contamination in our environment,” Watson said. “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.”

No amount of lead is considered safe in pregnant women and children because even tiny amounts can cause brain development and behavioral problems in children. Amounts formerly considered safe in adults recently have been found to increase rates of death from heart attack and stroke.

The Peregrine Fund’s 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 show widespread dispersal of lead fragments in the carcasses consistent with previous research. The fragments ranged in size from smaller than a grain of table salt to as large as a sesame seed.

“Some of it was closer to dust than a measurable fragment,” Watson said. “Without an x-ray, you would never know it was there.”

For the study, each of the 30 carcasses was taken to a different commercial meat processor for standard preparation of ground meat and boneless steaks in 2-pound packages. Even though processors routinely cut out and discard meat around the wound and along the bullet’s path inside the animal, fragments still ended up in packaged meat.

In addition to the ground meat packages, metal fragments also were found in packages of steaks. Of 16 deer carcasses with metal fragments near the spine, four showed fragments in the loin steaks. Some individual packages of both ground meat and steaks showed up to nine lead fragments, while others showed few or none, making it difficult for consumers to predict which packages might contain lead.

“Our results suggest that people may frequently ingest metallic lead when they consume deer killed with lead-based bullets and processed by normal procedures,” Watson said. “Fortunately, using copper bullets is a viable option to avoid the risk of lead exposure.”

The Peregrine Fund began studying the dangers of lead-based ammunition after endangered California Condors became sick or died from lead poisoning. The organization leads the condor recovery program in Arizona. Condors are bred and hatched at The Peregrine Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise and released to the wild near the Grand Canyon.

Peregrine Fund research showed that the large scavengers were poisoned after feeding on carcasses and gut piles from hunter-killed game. In 2007, 80 percent of hunters voluntarily used 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 said.

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Established in 1970, The Peregrine Fund works worldwide to conserve biological diversity by restoring endangered birds of prey and identifying their key environmental threats, ecology, and relationships with humans. The organization restores rare species through captive breeding and releases, conserves habitat, improves capacity for local conservation, and conducts scientific research and environmental education.

www.peregrinefund.org
CONTACT
Susan Whaley, public relations coordinator
(208) 362-8274 direct
(208) 860-2641 cell
(208) 362-3716 main

Download related photos at http://www.peregrinefund.org/lead_photos.asp

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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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