Pinnacles National Monument – A California condor was released
Thursday at the Pinnacles National Monument in the second
successful release of the park’s California Condor Recovery
Program, which raises the endangered birds in captivity for release
into the wild.
Pinnacles National Monument – A California condor was released Thursday at the Pinnacles National Monument in the second successful release of the park’s California Condor Recovery Program, which raises the endangered birds in captivity for release into the wild.
Of the three condors the park and the Ventana Wilderness Society (VWS) attempted to release Thursday, one female made it out of the pen, then roosted on a ridge after a short flight. That was a very encouraging result after the last attempted release in December, in which no birds left the pen, officials said. They will try to release the other two condors in coming days.
The Pinnacles and VWS condor releases are the only of their kind in the country, because they are open to the public. About 100 people attended the release.
“We’re really pleased that all of our releases are open to the public. You can see these birds flying around in this place that they used to call home, and now call home again,” said Park Superintendent Cicely Muldoon.
Norma and Harry Catchpole of Paso Robles said they have been interested in condors since they saw them on a 2003 trip to the Grand Canyon, and came to Thursday’s release to see them again.
“In the Grand Canyon, you can see 20 condors at one time, and you’re so close sometimes the people who work there have to shoo them away,” Norma said. “But we’ve only seen them in the Grand Canyon and never in California, and they’re California condors, so that’s why we came today.”
Once condors are successfully released, said Pinnacles National Monument Wildlife Biologist Jim Petterson, the goal is for them to mate with condors from other release sites throughout the state.
“They’ll find them (other condor communities) on their own,” Petterson said. “It’s just a matter of time before birds released here find the Hopper Mountain or Big Sur release sites, or vice-versa.”
Petterson said the Condor Recovery Project’s purpose is to create a self-sustaining species within about a decade. There are currently only about 50 California condors in the air in the state, and about 245 in captivity, he said.
The project’s coordinators chose to use a “soft-release” technique to release Thursday’s set of condors. The process includes using a 40- by 25-foot nylon mesh pen with two doors, in which three condors selected as mature enough to be in the wild are placed, according to Petterson. Because there are two doors that can be opened at different times, Petterson and his colleagues can decide which birds to set free and when.
“With the soft-release, it’s according to their (the condors’) own schedule. Of course, there’s always the risk that they don’t want to go that day and the release will be delayed,” he said. But there is the risk of injury or of a bird not being ready when it is trapped and forced to leave, said Petterson.
Once a bird is released, it typically takes it a few days to build up its flight muscles needed to make the longer flights that might take them to other release sites, Petterson said.
Before release, each condor is given a wing tag with a number and an electronic tracking device. The program is currently phasing in Global Positioning System units because they are easier to track than the older devices.
“If a bird disappears, we want to know what happened to it. We want to know if it landed on a power pole or got lead poisoning or what,” said Charlie Callagan, a ranger with the National Park Service.
VWS Executive Director Kelly Sorenson said power -line landings are one of the biggest threats posed to the birds released at the park, as they have had several condor deaths due to electrocution in the past. To teach the condors in captivity to avoid power poles, the Pinnacles and the VWS placed dummy poles in the birds’ pens that delivered a mild shock when touched.
The biggest success story of the recovery program so far has been condor number 199, which flew to the Pinnacles site from Big Sur in August.
Petterson said 199 stayed for about 10 days, and sees his interaction with the birds at the Pinnacles as an encouraging step towards the species’ eventual self-sufficiency.
“Our condors really did show a real affinity towards him,” he said.
