Audubon: California Condors Achieve a Happy New Milestone

[Omaha Steve]

For the first time in decades, the odds are looking more in the condors’ favor.


Female California Condor with her newly hatched chick. Photo: Joseph Brandt/USFWS


https://www.audubon.org/news/california-condors-achieve-happy-new-milestone

After more than 35 years of flirting with extinction, the California Condor is finally due for a success story. This week the California Condor Recovery Program announced that 2015 was the first year in decades in which the number of chicks hatched and raised in the wild outweighed the number of wild condor deaths—14 births to 12 deaths: a sign that these pink-faced beauties are on a steady track to recovery.

Condors may be the largest birds in North America, but they were, and still are, scarce. The bird was among the first animals to be protected by the Endangered Species Act in the 1970s—thanks to pressure from Audubon members. But habitat loss, hunting, DDT contamination, and, above all, lead poisoning continued to plague the condor, and ultimately, the species was reduced to a mere 23 individuals by the 1980s.

That’s when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and their partners decided they had to step in. In 1987, all of the remaining wild condors were captured and put into a captive breeding program. A few years later the hatched juveniles were released into the wild in California, Arizona, and Baja California.

Chicks that are hatched in captivity are typically released into the wild before the age of two, says Eric Davis, coordinator for the recovery program. He says that anywhere from 20 to 40 condors are freed each year. But reproduction can be slow among the species—females only lay one egg per nesting season. (Remember this gawky little guy that hatched on camera last spring, thanks to the loving care of two mommies?) In 2008, however, there were more condors soaring through the skies than there were in captivity—a huge landmark for the program. The population is now close to 270, with another 150 or so in captivity.

FULL story at link.


A small resurgence of wild condor chicks shows promising signs for the recovery of the species. Photo: Joseph Brandt/USFWS

[gratuitous]

1. I remember when they took them all out of the wild

I didn't know what was going to happen, if the condors had flown their last, but I knew the captive breeding program was the point of no return. It was either going to work or the birds would be extinct. I'm glad that through all the changes of the last 30 years, this program has stayed on task and gotten such a positive result.

[2naSalit]

2. Great news!

I took a class (1 semester) with one of the biologist/ornithologists who started that program... he's pretty old now, if he's still around.

[Brother Buzz]

3. Condors in an area along California's Central coast aren't doing so well

Banned Pesticide DDT Is Still Killing California Condors

By John R. Platt
September 20, 2013

Just one week after the California legislature voted to ban lead ammunition to protect California condors from the toxic substance, which they can consume via carcasses shot by hunters, new research shows that the critically endangered birds are also still at risk from another long-banned toxic substance: the pesticide DDT.

<snip>

The U.S. banned the use of DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) back in 1972 after studies linked it to the thinning of eggs in bald eagles, peregrine falcons and other species. The pesticide has also been linked to other health hazards in wildlife and humans. But even though it is no longer employed in this country, DDT persists for a long time in the environment, and its effects are still being felt today.

<snip>

Now, research pending publication in the journal The Condor reveals that the egg fragments recovered in the Big Sur region were 34 percent thinner than eggs laid at the same time in the southern reintroduction zone. Many of the latter shells lacked a normal external crystalline layer. The researchers link the thinness and malformations to DDT and the compound DDE (dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene), which is formed when the pesticide breaks down.

How did the condors end up with DDT and DDE in their systems? The birds in Big Sur have been observed dining on the carcasses of sea lions, sea otters and other marine mammals, animals the inland southern population lacks the opportunity to eat. Previous research into California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) from 1994 to 2006 found high levels of DDT and related compounds in their blubber, especially in the males. The marine mammals live near the 54-hectare Palos Verdes Shelf Superfund site, an underwater region contaminated by an estimated 1,540 metric tons of DDT discharged by the Montrose Chemical Corp. DDT manufacturing plant between the 1950s and 1970s. Earlier this year new tests estimated that the DDT at the site had somehow shrunk to just 12.7 metric tons; it is not yet known what happened to all of those missing chemicals.

The new study, available on the VWS's site, does not conclusively prove that DDT or DDE caused the condors' eggs to thin, but it does say the data is good enough to support their conclusion that it was the likely cause. The study also says the condors will likely do better in the future as DDT and DDE levels continue to decline naturally.

<more>

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/banned-pesticide-ddt-is-still-killing-california-condors/

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Good

and cute babies

[Omaha Steve]

5. Kick