International effort to save condors from extinction
The international effort to save condors from extinction focuses primarily on the California and Andean condors, both of which faced severe population declines due to habitat destruction, lead poisoning, poaching, and other human-related threats. Beginning in the late 1980s, this coordinated effort included the controversial practice of captive breeding, initiated when only 22 California condors remained in the wild. The breeding program, which involved capturing the last wild condors and raising them in controlled environments, sparked debates over the ethics and costs, which exceeded $40 million by the 2010s. Despite concerns that captive breeding might alter the birds' natural behaviors, the program achieved significant milestones, including the first wild condor egg laid in 2007 after decades of absence. By 2022, the wild population of California condors had increased to 347, with a total population of 561 when including those in zoos. Additional conservation measures, such as banning lead ammunition near condor habitats, contributed to this recovery. Ongoing monitoring efforts continue to support the cautious optimism surrounding the future of these iconic birds.
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International effort to save condors from extinction
DEFINITION: Species of vultures native to the Western Hemisphere
The coordinated international effort to bring both the California condor and the Andean condor back from near extinction, an effort that began in the late 1980’s, has been both successful and controversial. The controversial aspects of the effort include the amount of money expended and the use of the practice of captive breeding.
Despite their relatively small populations, condors, both California condors and the Andean condors of South America, are among the most recognized birds in the world. With its flattened, bald head, its thick black plumage with a tuft of white feathers around its neck, and its wide wingspan (on average close to 3 meters, or 10 feet), the California condor is the largest flying land bird in North America. It is known, despite its ungainly dimensions (it averages more than 23 kilograms, or 50 pounds) for graceful, balletic flight. Because condors feed on carrion, a food supply never threatened or restricted to particular areas, they are among the longest-living bird species, averaging close to fifty years in the wild.
Until the mid-twentieth century, the California condor inhabited a broad area along the Pacific coast all the way from lower Baja California in Mexico to the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada. In the years after World War II, however, the numbers of condors decreased dramatically owing to several factors: aggressive land development that destroyed condor habitats; lead poisoning from condors’ ingestion of carcasses discarded by careless hunters; the effects of widespread spraying of the on the integrity of the condors’ eggs; the rapid proliferation of power lines, in which the birds got tangled; and poaching by ruthless farmers who were convinced (erroneously) that the condors posed a threat to their cattle and sheep. Complicating these threats, breeding in the wild became problematic for condors because they have a naturally low birthrate and mature sexually at a slow rate.
By the early 1980’s only twenty-two California condors remained. Over the next ten years an energetic coalition of government workers, environmentalists, ornithologists, academics, and wilderness advocates began an aggressive effort to save the species. In South America the Andean condor faced a similarly dire dilemma, and scientists there eagerly watched the North American efforts and took many of the same actions.
In 1987, the six remaining wild California condors were captured and placed (along with the twenty-seven condors already in zoos) in a controlled-breeding recovery program in animal preserves in San Diego and Los Angeles. The project was not universally hailed—in addition to objecting to the exorbitant costs (just under $40 million had been spent by the 2010s, making it the most expensive species rescue program ever conducted in the United States), many scientists argued that caging the few remaining wild condors meant the species was de facto extinct and that artificially restarting it would forever alter the behavior of the birds. Indeed, as the captive condors began to breed, scientists maintained close control over the offspring, raising them (in a much-publicized strategy) with puppets resembling condors as surrogate parents.
Over the next several years, however, these condors were gradually reintroduced into selected areas in Southern California and central Arizona—but only after efforts had been made to train them to avoid flying into power lines. In addition, in 2008 aggressive lobbying efforts were successful in convincing the California legislature to ban hunters’ use of lead ammunition near areas marked as condor territory. The breeding program’s success was highlighted in 2007, when, for the first time in nearly six decades, a California condor laid an egg in the wild. By 2022, the number of California condors in the wild had climbed to 347; the entire population, including those living in zoos, had reached 561. Scientists continue to monitor the condors, cautiously optimistic that the species is on its way to slow but steady recovery.
Bibliography
"California Condor Population Graph, 1980–2022." U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 18 Apr. 2023, www.fws.gov/media/california-condor-population-graph-1980-2022. Accessed 16 July 2024.
Moir, John. Return of the Condor: The Race to Save Our Largest Bird from Extinction. Guilford, Conn.: Lyons Press, 2006.
Osborn, Sophie A. H. Condors in Canyon Country: The Return of the California Condor to the Grand Canyon Region. Grand Canyon, Ariz.: Grand Canyon Association, 2007.
Snyder, Noel F. R., and Helen Snyder. The California Condor: A Saga of Natural History and Conservation. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000.