John Nielsen. Condor: To the Brink and Back. New York: Harper, 2009. E-book.
I have only visited the State of California twice in my life. The first time I drove there in 1976. I was a birder, but knew little about birds outside of the Northeast. I had with me a copy of the Zim and Robbins guidebook. It was not as good as the Peterson’s, but it had birds all across North America, not just the East like Peterson. I also brought a copy of Carl Koford’s book The California Condor, on the outside chance that I might see one of those monstrous rarities.
Koford laid out, as of 1953 when the book was published, where the Condor might be seen in California, including some pretty reliable spots. I spent a few days with a great uncle in Santa Barbara, next headed for San Francisco. However, I took an inland route hoping perhaps to spot a Condor while it was still possible to see one in the wild.
As I was poking along a highway somewhere near Cuyama and New Cuyama, I saw bird soaring in the distance over the coastal range to the west. I watched it with my binoculars in the distance for about 45 minutes. I think it flapped its wings once the whole time. “Praise the Lord,” I said to myself. It was a Condor. I had seen one free-flying in the wild before its extinction.
Nielsen’s Condor tells us that a lot has happened since then. The birds are not extinct, Indeed, there are a lot more individuals alive now than in 1976 (200 or more compared to fewer than 30). The story of their decline and survival is what Nielsen shares.
The bird with a ten-foot wingspan, the largest land bird in North America, was a holdover from an earlier era when mastodons, giant bears, and ground sloths roamed North America. There were even larger condors then and possibly even pterosaurs. Observers noted in the nineteenth century that the Condors often fed on whale carcasses. They were scavengers, but their size meant they had been more abundant when larger animal carcasses were also more abundant.
Nielsen notes that the Condor’s population problems started when the first humans settled in North America. They hunted many of the large mammals to extinction. They also often killed Condors. Indians prized their feathers and skins. Cattle ranchers and sheep herders would blame them for killing their livestock. By the beginning of the twentieth century a bird that had once ranged from New York to Florida and British Columbia to Baja California now was confined to two mountain ranges in one state and the plains between.
Nielsen tells the story of how a number of different organizations and government agencies worked together to preserve the bird. There were rivalries and some strong disagreements. Some believed they were best left alone, they just needed protected land. Others spoke of captive breeding programs—though the book does not mention them, such programs seemed to be working for other threatened and endangered species of birds like the Whooping Crane, Peregrine, and Trumpeter Swan. The book does name the Peregrine Fund as one of the non-profits that supported the captive breeding program.
Eventually things got so bad that by 1987 the last of the wild Condors had been captured and sent to one of two locations affiliated with the Los Angeles and San Diego Zoos. Nearly 200 of these extra-large vultures were hatched in captivity. In 1996 some were released in the Grand Canyon area, an area where there was fairly recent fossil evidence that they had once lived and bred. By 2001 some were released in their more recent California range.
Mistakes were made, but it appears the Condor breeders have learned from their mistakes. There are dramatic and humorous stories about those observing Condors or looking for their eggs. They mostly nest in caves in cliffs, so to get close, one has to be an agile rock climber and at least an amateur spelunker. There is a whole chapter devoted to Carl Koford, the author of the book that I brought with me on my cross-country trip.
The main problem for Condors today appears to be lead poisoning. The birds eat carcasses that have been shot and not claimed or, perhaps, killed and used for target practice. It does appear, though, they have a fighting chance. In my home state lead shot is now largely regulated, and steel shot is required in most cases.
Even though they are scavengers, they are fighters. too. Like other birds of prey, they are rough with their little ones. Besides man, their main enemies are Ravens which try to eat their eggs and Golden Eagles which sometimes try to attack them. Patient field observers have detailed struggles between Condors and Eagles which seem to go down to the wire.
Another interesting character besides Koford is Sanford “Sandy” Wilbur, a naturalist with the Fish and Wildlife Service. He was a born-again Christian who saw preserving the Condor as a calling from God. I note him because this belies the idea that was propagated in the 1970s that Christians do not care for the environment because they are too heavenly-minded. I had an acquaintance who had been on the board of National Audubon who himself was a born-again Christian. I asked him about that observation which I read in their magazine. He shook his head with a sad smile: “The campus radicals have taken over.”
Nielsen also notes the role that the Condor plays in the folklore of some of the native California tribes. According to the Wyot tribe of Humboldt County, Condor and his sister survived a world-wide flood in a basket and then begot the human race. The Mono tribe of Madera County said that it was the Condor himself who caused a world-wide flood. It does seem that stories about a world-wide flood are truly world wide!
It is possible now to see California Condors in California and Arizona, maybe Utah, too. Every one of them now has a satellite transmitter so people can keep track of them. According to American Birding Association rules they are not yet “countable.” Introduced or re-introduced species have to have survived in a location for twenty-five years to count them. That means that if you see one near the Grand Canyon in 2021 or in California in 2026, they can be counted once again.
May they live long and prosper.