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Whalebone Magazine: The National Parks Issue, Presented by Fjällräven. |
California Condors At A Glance
California condors are North America's biggest and rarest bird species. Despite decades of work, these obligate scavengers are still very much a Critically Endangered species. The last two free-flying California condors were taken out of the wild in 1987 to join the remaining 25 captive individuals in a mass effort to repopulate the species. Conservation organizations, AZA accredited zoos, public support in all, and two decades later... some wild California Condors unabashedly roam Central California's skies again. However, the battle is far from over. The main threat to these sky giants was, and continues to be, lead poisoning. Lead fragments from exploded bullets are found in the carrion they eat, which travels into their blood stream and, if without intervention from biologists, eventually kills them. Biologists are able to track and monitor their health them thanks to GPS devices that are plainly seen attached to their enormous wings. Other challenges they face include eating carrion with both rodenticides and pesticides like DDT and DDE, micro-trash ingestion, rangeland conversion, and wind-energy development. For a biological anachronism, an obligate scavenger and obligate soaring bird, this is an uphill battle that has taken decades to recover and probably will take decades more before California condors can be downgraded from their "Critically Endangered" status.
The Modern Day Story
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It’s the first time a tribal nation has reintroduced California condors back into the wild (May, 2022). There are less than 200 of these ancient, obligate scavengers in all of California. Over 100 years absent from its redwood range, a new disjunct population of condors has been created, labeled as a "nonessential experimental population" to compromise for land-sharing with energy companies and private landowners. It’s also an historic moment, not just for wildlife conservation as a whole, but deeply-felt for the Yurok Tribe and the entire California Condor Recovery Program, where many organizations, zoos, agencies, and more have been working for 35 years to get to a point where condor reintroductions could actually come to fruition in my home of Northern California.
This conservation of a single species is perhaps most important when looking at establishing disjunct populations, where each new population represents the weakest link in the species. With incredible help, I’ve been granted access to undisclosed research sites, AZA accredited zoos, and other sensitive locations of interest, which helps me overall compare and contrast between the seven new individuals in Redwood National Park with two other main disjunct populations. This story is part of a much bigger, ongoing project.
The full project includes creating the most comprehensive image portfolio of critically endangered California Condors across all reintroduction sites in three states plus Baja, Mexico, as well as covering the behind-the-scenes human augmentation effort to illustrate how the condors have made it to the populations they are in today. The story is meant to inspire by sharing the complicated puzzle to recovery that spans across different cultures, geographic regions, and generations. The photography will help drive conservation initiatives, provide educational awareness, and provide resources for all that are involved.
This conservation of a single species is perhaps most important when looking at establishing disjunct populations, where each new population represents the weakest link in the species. With incredible help, I’ve been granted access to undisclosed research sites, AZA accredited zoos, and other sensitive locations of interest, which helps me overall compare and contrast between the seven new individuals in Redwood National Park with two other main disjunct populations. This story is part of a much bigger, ongoing project.
The full project includes creating the most comprehensive image portfolio of critically endangered California Condors across all reintroduction sites in three states plus Baja, Mexico, as well as covering the behind-the-scenes human augmentation effort to illustrate how the condors have made it to the populations they are in today. The story is meant to inspire by sharing the complicated puzzle to recovery that spans across different cultures, geographic regions, and generations. The photography will help drive conservation initiatives, provide educational awareness, and provide resources for all that are involved.
One of the adult California Condors sits calmly in line, waiting to be blood tested, measured, and weighed. Most condors have been through this health check routine many times, so know how to handle the situation. They are extremely intelligent and it shows both in their patience and curiosity as they study each other being handled by the biologists. It's surprisingly funny and amazing to witness.
A juvenile California Condor gets released after passing the lead poisoning blood test and is seen coming in for a landing over the Santa Lucia Mountains, deep within the Ventana Wilderness. Juveniles have black heads as opposed to the time-tested adults who sport full sunset colors at seven years old.
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To entice them to the research site, biologists lay out cow carcasses provided by ranchers. The food also acts as reliable supplements for newly released birds, and in times where finding animal carcasses to feast on in the wild becomes difficult.
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One of the Kingdoms of California Condors - Pinnacles National Park
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Their role is to clean the environment, which means that, as living biological anachronisms, they provided the same services for ice-age animals like mastodons, mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, and even giant sloths. They are one of the last ice-age animals alive today, along with komodo dragons, echindas, musk oxen, tapirs, white rhinos, whale sharks, and saiga antelopes.
