California Condor: Wings of the Southwest

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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Abney Money and I'm Rick Schwartz. Welcome to Amazing Wildlife, where we explore unique stories of wildlife from around the world and uncover fascinating animal facts. This podcast is a production of I Heart Radio and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, in international nonprofit conservation organization behind the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park. Today, we're telling the story of a bird that was once extinct in the wild, but now glides across southwestern US skies. We're exploring the California condors deep ties to the region, and we're talking to two San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance team members, Lead wildlife care Specialists Ron Webb and Associate Director of Conservation Research Division Nacho Vila Chiese about what it took to work with partners to reintroduce the largest North American land bird back into the wild. Rick, So, how big is the California condor, oh ebony. I think it's fair to say they are really, really big, and then the numbers support that their wingspan alone is very impressive, ranging anywhere from eight to almost ten ft wing tip to wing tip, and when we look at body length head to tail, if you will. The average is about three and a half feet to four feet in length. And wait, well, on average we're talking sixteen to twenty two pounds. They are quite the big bird. Wow. So a wingspan of eight to ten feet that is impressive and hard to imagine. Rick, how does that compare to other large birds that people might see or be more familiar with. Yeah, I think that's a fair question, EVIANY. And I think a good bird to compare them with is a golden eagle. They share a lot of the same habitat, and the golden eagle is well known. So when we compare them with the golden eagle, of course, the California condor is the bigger bird. Pound for pound, golden eagle is coming in about eight to twelve pounds, and even as powerful as they are, that is still about half the weight of the California condor. And that impressive wingspan. Well, again, golden eagles measure about six to eight feet wing tip to wing tip, and as we know, that's a couple of feet less than the California condor. So these are some pretty big birds. We're talking about. What exactly does a California condor hunt or eat. What do they need to be so big? Well, I love this question, ey, because you are right. The bigger the animal, the more they need to eat. So what in the world does such a big bird eat and how do they get their meal? Well, the California condor, like other condors and vultures, eats carrion or already deceased animals, and they'll feast on large mammals, including beer cows, elk, sea lion, and even a whale carcass that might wash ashore. And the size and wingspan of the California condor play an important role in how they find their food. So, unlike some vultures, which use their sense of smell to find food, California condors use their incredibly good eyesight. They can fly hundreds of miles every day, soaring in incredibly high altitudes to find their next meal. And you might think they are scanning the ground for carcasses to feed upon, but that can be difficult to see sometimes. So how does their amazing eyesight help them find their next meal? They watch the behavior of other smaller scavengers, such as vultures, crows, and ravens. As these and other scavengers circle above, and gather around a carcass. Their movements and behaviors are observed by the California condor, letting the condor know that a meal is available. And to answer the last part of your question, they need to be as big as they are with a large wingspan so they can use thermal updrafts so they can sort high above everybody else looking for these activities and behaviors to find their next meal. And it's hard to believe, but they can glide on thermals up to ten feet. These birds sound clever. That's so impressive that they're able to find food by watching the behavior of other animals. And according to indigenous folklore, the California condor gained the nickname thunderbird because people said the flapping of their wing could create thunder. What's known about the birds cultural significance in native cultures, It really is amazing, embany. I mean, when you think about it, the California condor has been around since supplices in epoch, which we're talking tens of thousands of years, that the species and early humans shared space and continued to do so in our modern era, and with the California condor historically living across all of North America, including as far east as Florida and New York, and more recently western North America. There were clearly many different cultures that held a special place in their lives and ceremonies for these amazing birds. In many cultures, the California condor is associated with a spiritual connection to the other world or spiritual world, sometimes representing a connection to those who have passed, or representing the death and rebirth of life, and other similar beliefs. But one of the more well known connections that has shared across many cultures is the California condor, also being known as the thunder bird, be it bringing the power of a thunderstorm with its appearance in the sky to creating thunder with a flap of its wings. I think it is fair to say the California condor made a big impact on all whoever had the opportunity to see them. And Rick, we've covered a few of the California condors stand out characteristics such as its wingspan as you just mentioned, and overall size. But how else can you identify these birds? Well, I mean, I think some people might just look at them and think that they're a giant vulture, and I guess that wouldn't be completely wrong because California condors are a type of vulture, but much much larger than the average vulture species. But general characteristics of an adult California condor, aside from size, they're primarily black in color. They do have brilliant white triangles under each wing and a red or orange head. Some adults are younger, These would be the condors six years and younger are almost entirely black with dark heads and sort of a multi gray plume wage on the underside of each wing brick. Another identifying characteristics are the number tags on both wings. What are those numbers for? What do they indicate? Yesh ebony and this is the best way to also tell if you are actually seeing a California condor in the wild versus a different species of vulture. All California condors are carefully studied and to make sure we know where they are and who is who, each condor is tagged for identification purposes. The numbers on the California condor's wing tags correspond to their tag i D database shared between the US Fish and Wildlife Service and countless other organizations working to save them, including the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. What's the California condor's current status in the wild. Well, currently, the California condor is listed as critically endangered. But before we talk about their current population numbers, I want our audiences to understand that in the nineties there were only twenty two individuals left in the entire planet. That's twenty two California condor's left on the entire higher planet. And it's worth noting their decline and near extinction was not a natural process. The impact of human populations from litter in the environment, lead being released into habitats, and pesticides are just some of what was causing their decline. But like I always say, if it is a human made problem, well then there can be a correction with the human made solution. And although the California condor is currently listed as a critically endangered species, the future is looking bright for them. Well, I guess you could say looking up right, because with the work of multiple zoos, conservation partners, and government agencies, there are now almost five hundred California condors alive today and about half of that population is flying free in the wild. The California Condors conservation story. It's a great example of how we can create a world where all life thrives when we work together. Their story always brings me hope for them and so many other endangered species. And we'll be talking more about the California condors concert Asian story in just a bit, but first this now it's time for the San Diego Zoom Minute, an opportunity for you to learn what's new at the Zoo. The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance has a new way for allies to connect with wildlife and explore exotic locations around the world, while helping to save species and support local communities at the same time. San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Adventures, a new sustainable travel business, provides opportunities to visit some of the most awe inspiring places on the planet, guided by top conservation scientists, wildlife experts, and photographers. Did you Know studies and our disease investigations show that the main obstacle preventing condor populations from becoming viable in the wild is lead poisoning, resulting from ingestion of ammunition fragments and carcasses left by hunters. Yeah, let's continue to delve into the story of the California condor, the largest North American land bird that disappeared in nature and was declared extinct in the wild in the late nineteen eighties. We have two experts joining the conversation to talk about the efforts people have made to save this species. We're welcoming the Associate director of Recovery Ecology, Nacho villed Cheese, and Ron Webb, the lead wildlife care specialists for the Condor project, both with the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. So the San Diego Zoo was the first facility in the world to hatch a California condor. Nacho, What did it take to make that possible is a huge amount of effort that actually began in the late forties. So Bell Benchley, who was a San Diego Zoo director at the time, and also Casey Lint who was a curator birch at the time, first proposed conservation breading of a con doors in nineteen nine. This proposition came from the success in breeding andian condors at the San Diego who in the forties. We were really good at that, but unfortunately Benuley and Lint. We're not able to gain the consensus of the then condor biologist community, and so nothing really happened. And fast forward to thirty five years later in the mid eighties, when all the condors were brought into conservation breeding programs at the San Diego Zoo whild Animal Park, or at the time was called that now there's a Friday Park and the Los Angeles to thirteen went to l a and thirteen went to San Diego and the last condor, known as a C nine, was captured in the eastern Sunday of so in order to quickly increase the population of all pairs, the breeding pairs who were encouraged to lay two eggs. Ron knows much more about this than me, by removing one egg in early incubations, so females would lay a replacement egg. And with most of these chicks were hand raised by keepers using puppets mimicking the condra parents, which is a tremendous amount of work. And currently chicks are raised now by their parents because we know that this provides the best outcomes for in the future when they're released. What do you think on Yeah, there's a lot of time and cooperation to help recover the condors. The Safari Park and the San Diego Zoo were asked initially to help with the Los Angeles Zoo, and since then we've brought another partner's the Oregan Zoo in Portlands, the World Center for Birds of Prey up in Boise, Idaho, and now that Chapoltepec Zoo in Mexico City were the five breeding facilities for California condors, and we also work with several reintroduction organizations at the different release sites, Ventana Wildlife Society, the Paragrine Fund, Fish and Wildlife Services. Thats a big team effort to get the condors together, and we couldn't have done it as just one organization. It's really interesting to see the cooperation and coordination over the years to get the efforts that we've put forth to come to fruition. And not sure what does it mean to be the associate director of Recovery Ecology. Where does your role fit into the conservation of the California condor Whether Sandy Wa Hawaiians I hope run our conservation research program that works hand in hand with all the five release sites and Efficient Wildlife Service so We work particularly close with the release side in Bach, California, where we work with our Mexican partners to continue to learn as much as we can about the species and its best options for recovery. So one big thing that we do is we provide logistical and financial support to this release side and to our Mexican partners. And I also helped coordinate this too. Same question, run, what's your role in that of your teams? As the lead wildlife care specialists for the condor project at the Safari Park, we have about thirty avian wildlife care specialists to take care of a lot of birds around the park, many different species. We have a five or six condor care specialists and I helped coordinate that team and their efforts into achieving goals that the Seigo Zoo Wildlife Alliance sets as well as the US Fishing Wildlife Service who oversees the program. So I helped kind of coordinate the efforts between the two to reach our goals. Can you give an example like what might that look like? So how is work being done at the San Diego Zu Safari Park connected to the conservation of California condors? Well, every California condor that's produced at the park. We call it a release candida, a reintroduction candidate. We expect that bird to be released back to the wild to join the free flying flock. Every once a while there's a bird we're asked to keep it back, whether it's for breeding purposes or I might have a physical disadvantage, but we start off expecting every bird to be released. We have a strict release protocol in which we raise these birds to have a limited contact with humans. We find that the more familiar they are with humans before they're released to the wild, the lower their survivability is, so we try to make sure we're producing good wild birds that aren't attracted to human activity. That brings me to my next question, why is human assistance needed? I'm sure people are possibly wondering that very question. In the ecology, every species has a birth rate or hatch rate, or they call it a replacement rate, at a rate at which lost individuals are replaced by the members that die, and then there's the mortality rate, and those two rates kind of work hand in hand. The California condor is a species has a very low mortality rate naturally, and therefore it has a very low replacement rate. When you don't die very often, there's no need to reproduce very often, and that kind of keeps the population in check, as opposed to like a species that dies often, like food sources, rabbits, lizards, ducks, mice that babies all the time. Because they're getting eaten all the time, they have a high mortality rate and they need a high reproductive rate to to keep up with that. So the condors were cruised along pretty well there for a few thousand years, and in the last couple of hundred years, their mortality rate was artificially elevated because of people, and sometimes it was purposeful persecution and sometimes it's accidental, and so we've actually artificially elevated at mortality rate. So fast forward to the present day. What has happened since the first hatching ron? How many more hatchings have They're been original we had those fifteen wild eggs were brought to the San Diego Zoo for artificial incubation and then hatching, and then since then we started getting our zoo bred birds the eggs being laid at the Safari Park. But altogether we've had seven eggs laid at the Safari Park, and two chicks have hatched between the zoo and the Safari Park, and um a hundred sixty eight of those chicks that have hatched have been released to the wild. So what's the process of preparing a California condor for release into nature. Yes, so it's a long lived species. As not to mention earlier, it takes about eighteen months to reach independence, so it's with mom and dad for about a year and a half. It doesn't fly until it's five months of age, so it's a very long rearing period and mom and dad both incubate the egg and take care of the chick at the same time, the one egg in the nest. Initially we would puppet raise the birds because we didn't know the compatibility behavioral compatibility of the birds own the program first started, and so every egg was very valuable, very rare, and when the numbers were so low, and so we pulled everything to artificial incubation, we puppet reared the best we could and then we try to raise the best behaved birds possible with the known methods, and over time, thanks to different file just measuring a suitability for birds after their release, we've been able to tweak our methods of puppet ring and so they're prehaving just like parent reared birds. And also too, we've been able to give the breeding birds at the park opportunities to raise their own chicks, and now the majority of the chicks are raised by the parents. They're very impressionable, especially post fledge when they leave the nest, and so we don't send them to the release sites until they're about a year and a half old, and until then they stay here at the park with a mentor bird living in a group of young birds. And then there's an adult bird and that we call the mentor. It's a female. Her job is to kind of continue the job the parents started and what the puppe may have started, showing them how to interact in a group the very social species. She kind of shows them where they're allowed to perch, when they're allowed to eat, who they're allowed to sit next to. Kind of, so she's the boss and she's kind of showing them the ropes. Um, it's better that she shows them the ropes rather than a dominant male that's not gonna be as forgiving out in the wild. So they all kind of lived together for about a year or so after they fledge here at the park and then they're sent to their release sites where their socialized very shortly with their cohort, and then they're released to the wild and they kind of trickle in and they kind of slowly assimilated into the free flying population. So lastly, what's next and the conservation of the Califerna condor Nacho, Well, I think the next part is just to continue conservation breeding. When a lot of releases and the five release sites soon to be six, I think that's key, is just to continue that and also to continue all the conservation research. And also one thing that we're involved with along with all the other release sites is that we're working with Mano Ficklenstein for a music Santa Cruz to revamp an old population viability model that is gonna better guide us to know what's it gonna take to recover the species and get it off to endangered species list or downlisted to threat which is still a far horizon, but we want to know what's it gonna take. And having all the survival and mortality numbers from all release sites into that model is going to be really helpful to information for all of us, and Ron, how how will your team fit into this conservation plan. Our job is to be here to help produce a nurture some California condors to be reintroduced to the wild, as many as the Fish Walife Service needs to have a sustaining population. I was see ourselves as the training wheels for the species. Species is trying to truck along nice and securely, and we're on the back kind of keeping it upright, and then after it's built up some speed, then we could pop the training wheels off and then the bike just goes off from the road without us, and hopefully someday will be put out of a job. I wouldn't mind having to look for a new job as long as the California Condra has self sustained population out there. So, Ron, I understand that there is a pretty neat way for people at home to get connected with this project. Can you tell us about the condor cam. Yeah, we have a camera in one of our nests at the Safari Park showing up mom and dad. It started off with them taking care of their egg and their chick hatched a little while ago, and now they're raising their chick on camera. And you can tune in any time and watch the dad. His name is Seucil, and the mom's name is Antique. They're raising their little chick. Doesn't have a name yet, but it will get one. The really fun thing about this year is Antiqui, the mom. She was raised on Condor Cam back in. Now she's old enough to have her own kids, and so she's the Conter Camp star raising more Condra Cam stars. But it's really fun to watch the progress of the chick as it's growing, and you can watch some feeding sessions, watch it picking up mom and dad's neck and they could kind of discipline it or cuddle with it. It's really fun to watch the interactions. People normally think of this vulture this kind of slurping on, blooding, eating everything, and you can see be so nurturing and loving towards its chick. It's really fun. It really gets you to understand little bond, family bond that goes on with something you don't normally think about with vultures. Wow, that sounds amazing. We've been talking to Nacho of Cheese and Ron Web with the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance about the conservation of the California Condor. Thanks so much for sharing all of that great information. Thank you, thank you, thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed learning about the California Condor, and be sure to subscribe and tune into next week's episode, in which we're bringing the story of an animal that runs so fast you think they'd be hard to spot. I'm Abdy Money and I'm Rich Schwartz. Thanks for listening. If you would like to find out more about San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, please visit sdz w a dot org. Amazing Wildlife is a production of I Heart Radio. Our producer is Nikia Swinton and our executive producer is Marci A. Peanut. Our audio engineer and editor is Sierra Spring. For more shows from my Heart Radio, check out the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.