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The Eclipse of the California Condor
| Article
# : |
14001 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1988 |
2,711 Words |
| Author
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Dwight G. Smith
Dwight G. Smith is professor and chairman of the biology
department at Southern Connecticut State University in New
Haven. His latest book, Plants, was released this summer by
Pearson Publishing Company of Boston. |
For thousands of years the great black bird had flown free. Through the ebb and flow of four ice ages, the vulture-like scavenger had soared across a changing landscape in search of carcasses as diverse as the wooly mammoth, the saber-toothed cat, and later, cattle poisoned to kill the coyotes that would feed upon them.
Yet in the twentieth century this million-year-old species neared extinction as numbers in the wild shrank from about 60 in 1939 to 30 in the 1970s to just 6 in 1986. On April 19, 1987, the last wild California condor was captured. It joined 26 other captive condors residing in two zoos on the West Coast.
Now extinct in the wild, the California condor symbolizes for many the conflict between civilization and wilderness; but our knowledge of biology is beginning to mitigate some of the distressing consequences of the conflict. Where wanton slaughter once led to the extinction of the passenger pigeon, extinction has now become a regulated process with the presumed "right to die free" preempted by the presumed higher good of trying to save the species from complete extinction. Wildlife biologists have gained experience in their efforts to save species as different as the whooping crane and the black-footed ferret from extinction, and they are confident that they can also save the California condor.
Now that all of the condors have been safely extricted from their wild, free, and unfortunately dangerous natural environment, the next era in California condor biology begins. The 27 captive condors are scheduled ot be the progenitors of all future generations of free condors. They are housed in spacious pens nicknamed "condor-miniums" by zoo workers. The pens are large enough to permit swoops and short flights, although from sheer necessity too small to allow soaring flights, the staple of the hunting condor. Condors are, however, naturally lethargic, perhaps even lazy, and the captive condors seem to do well without the additional exercise. In any case, they no longer need to fly 100 miles or more each day in search of food. Instead, carcasses of livestock, deer, and other wild animals, laced with antibiotics and vitamins supplements, are provided, albeit at irregular intervals, to simulate natural conditions in which food may not be found for several days.
Captive Breeding Of The California Condor
Undoubtedly the critically important element in the condor recovery plan--and the one that has received the most
...
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