Hollister
– Before Pinnacles National Monument officials had time to sort
out the first death in its endangered California condor flock,
biologists found a second dead bird Friday.
Hollister – Before Pinnacles National Monument officials had time to sort out the first death in its endangered California condor flock, biologists found a second dead bird Friday.
The bird was found in Big Sur, where another flock of California condors lives. Ventana Wildlife Society biologists found the body of the condor Friday morning, two days after finding the dead body of another bird that calls Big Sur its native home.
Carl Brenner, the park’s public information officer, said Friday’s death has monument officials puzzled.
“We’re baffled,” Brenner said. “We have no idea of what has happened to either of our condors.”
Kelly Sorenson, executive director of the Ventana Wildlife Society, which runs the California condor reintroduction program at Big Sur, said the cause of death for its bird has yet to be confirmed.
“It’s hard to say much of anything until you get the data back,” he said.
Results from the recent deaths are expected within the next three weeks.
Biologists found 4-year-old male California condor 301 from the Big Sur flock near a power line that killed two birds in 2006, Sorenson said. The bird had a cut on his leg that suggests he may have collided with the power line.
“Until we get the results back, we aren’t going to conclude it was the line,” Sorenson said.
Pacific Gas and Electric installed state-of-the-art marking devices on the power lines after the deaths in 2006, Sorenson said.
On Friday, the society found the body of California condor 307 near a popular roost at Big Sur.
On Thursday, biologists received a “mortality signal” from the bird, which comes from its radio transmitter after eight hours of no movement.
Like the first California condor found dead at Pinnacles on May 12, Friday’s death has no obvious cause, Brenner said.
Pinnacles biologists had successfully released three 1-year-old California condors over the past three weeks, but found the body of California condor 417 in a field just outside the monument. It was the monument’s first-ever condor death.
Officials sent the bird’s remains to an Ashland, Ore., forensic laboratory for further examination.
The monument will not take any action until it gets results from the examinations, Brenner said.
“We don’t know what to do because we don’t know how this happened,” he said.
Before the deaths this month, only three California condors had died in the Big Sur and Pinnacles flocks. The Big Sur and Pinnacles California condor populations were introduced in 1998 and 2003, respectively.
“I think what’s really hard is it’s so close together and to lose two 4-year-olds,” Sorenson said.
After the two latest deaths, there are 135 California condors living in the wild and another 150 in captivity, Sorenson said.
Pinnacles National Monument now has 13 California condors flying in the wild.
Jim Petterson, a park biologist, told the Free Lance at the monument’s public release of the condors in April that the program hopes to have two wild populations of 150 birds each.
The program was started in the 1980s when the California condor nearly became extinct. In 1987, federal biologists captured the remaining 22 California condors and began the rehabilitation program.
