Condors soar toward sustainability in California, though threats remain

Excitement and expectation are the present-day tenets for wildlife managers in Big Sur and Pinnacles National Park as breeding pairs of California condors are raising chicks and repopulating a historic species (Gymnogyps californianus) that 38 years ago was nearly doomed.

Many thousands of California condors, by far the largest birds in North America, dominated Western skies 40,000 years ago, feeding on the carcasses of deer, elk, mastodons, mammoths, whales and other animals.

But by 1982, these giant scavengers with 91/2-foot wingspans had reached a mortality tipping point.

Decimated by poaching, lead poisoning and habitat destruction, just 22 of the giant birds remained in the wild at that time.

Annihilation was close at hand when, after fierce debate between those who would let the birds slip into extinction and conservationists insisting on saving the species, the decision was made to launch a captive breeding program.

Millions of dollars later, wildlife managers with hands-on contributions to the California condor recovery program can justify sharing a cautious yet optimistic sense of achievement.

Their hopefulness is based on the fact that 101 condors are flying free in the Big Sur area and in Pinnacles National Monument — and 312 soar the skies throughout the Western states and Baja California.

Will condors become self-sustaining?

Even more robust is the pride and confidence biologists and wildlife managers express now that condors are pairing up, raising chicks, and beginning to re-populate California and other western regions.

Given the recent surge of success, is it realistic to imagine that the wild condor flock will be self-sustaining in the foreseeable future? Will the captive breeding program no longer be necessary?

“The increasing trend in the number of successful breeding pairs of California condors in the wild is exciting and a sign we are on the right track to recovery,” Ventana Wildlife Society (VWS) executive director Kelly Sorenson wrote in an email.

The condor recovery program is “still aided by ongoing releases of captive-bred” birds, Sorenson wrote, including 28 captive-bred juveniles released from the mountains above San Simeon since 2016.

But Sorenson suspects “they are not far from being self-sustaining, meaning, year-over-year they may be close to maintaining their population number,” he wrote.

Sorenson wrote that self-sufficiency for condors is possibility given the increasing trend of successful breeding pairs.

With a few less deaths from lead poisoning, the biggest ongoing threat to condors, these enormous birds could flourish, he said.

The VWS, which manages the condor flock in the Big Sur and San Simeon region, has been making lead-free copper ammunition available to hunters and ranchers to help resolve the most dangerous threat to condors’ sustainability.

When condors dine on an animal shot with lead ammunition, they often become seriously ill and many die.

Of the 185 condor deaths between 1992 and 2019 where a cause of death has been verified by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, lead poisoning accounted for 50%. Some 93 free-flying condors that were reported as missing for more than 365 days were presumed dead.

Other known causes for the condor flock’s mortality since 1992 include: drowning, hitting a power line, predation, fire and being shot. Juveniles can become victims of coyotes, cougars and bobcats, and nestlings can be killed by common ravens and bears.

Condors in Pinnacles National Park

There are 12 nesting pairs of condors in the Central California region. Three are in Pinnacles, about 80 miles east of Big Sur, and nine are in the Big Sur Wilderness.

Typically, condors make nests in caves, crevices in rock faces or in tree cavities.

One of the three nesting pairs in Pinnacles, condors Nos. 340 and 236, have been nesting since 2015 and have successfully raised two chicks, according to Alacia Welch, condor crew leader with the National Park Service, which manages Pinnacles.

That pair is currently tending to an egg that was laid several weeks ago.

Condors only lay one egg at a time, usually between late January and early April, Welch explained in an mail, and if something happens to that egg, the pair may lay a second egg in the same season “but never two at once.”

Both the male and female “share all aspects of nesting” and they actually “set up a schedule for incubation,” Welch continued. “One will incubate for a few days then swap out with the other parent.” This continues for about two months or until the egg hatches.

During the first month after hatching, the nestling needs “constant care,” Welch explained. After that, parents are often gone from the next to forage for food.

Parents regurgitate food they located into the mouth of the chick. Condors feed on carrion they locate through keen eyesight, not smell.

In six months, the chick is ready to fledge from the nest, and in another three to five months its parents will have schooled the new bird on foraging so it can fly free and independently. The first successful fledging of a chick from a nest occurred in Big Sur in 2007.

“If our active breeding pairs do well this year,” Sorenson predicted, “the number of chicks could exceed six.”

“The overall trends are encouraging,” he wrote.

To view condor behaviors up close, visit VWS’s Condor Cam at ventanaws.org/condor_cam.html.