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March 30, 2006

The New Days Of The Condor

It's great news for condors this week. For the first time in 101 years, California Condors (Gymnogyps californianus) have nested in the Big Sur redwoods, not fifty miles from here!

A giant opportunistic predator who once fed on seals and other coastal life, the condor is a vulture on the brink of extinction. Known for its massive wingspan of up to 10 feet, the condor has has the distinction of being the largest flying land bird in the Western Hemisphere.

Shooting and poisoning eventually led the California condor population to decline dramatically until fewer than 25 birds were left in the world. About twenty years ago, the remaining wild ones were put into captive breeding programs to try and sustain them, and several have been re-released in California in the past ten years or so.

But as far as anyone knows, this is the first incident of condors breeding in the wild once again.

The condor couple was found Monday displaying typical nesting behavior inside a hollowed-out redwood tree in Big Sur, a mountainous coastal region south of Monterey, the Ventana Wildlife Society said Tuesday.

...

Ventana, a nonprofit group, began releasing condors into the wild in 1997 and now monitors a population of 38 condors in Central California.The last known condor egg in Northern California was collected in 1905 in Monterey County.

More At: KTVU: Condors End 100-Year Absence In Norcal Woods

Posted by sorsha at March 30, 2006 7:14 PM