The largest bird in North America was nearly wiped out. Here's how it fought its way back.

[Zorro]

There aren’t many happy conservation stories these days.

The plot and players are familiar by now: a species on the verge of extinction and a swelling human population seemingly intent on pushing it over the edge, plus the ever-looming climate catastrophe that ratchets up the stakes in all wildlife protection narratives.

But in the case of the California condor — North America’s largest flying bird — those elements add up to something very different: good news.

In 1982, when just 22 California condors were left in the world and the species’ obituary was being written in advance, scientists captured the remaining population to breed the scavenger birds in captivity. Nearly four decades later, a consortium of government agencies and nonprofit groups announced a miraculous milestone: 1,000 California condor chicks hatched since the official rescue program began.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/07/23/california-condor-hatchlings-hit-conservation-milestone/

[Aristus]

1. That's wonderful!

I remember reading magazine articles right around the time the captive breeding program started. There were photographs of zoologist hand-feeding condor hatchling with condor-shaped hand-puppets.

[Collimator]

4. I remember those pictures.

Condors are not the prettiest birds and those puppets were a little scary looking to me.

[love_katz]

2. Loving it!

So nice to get some good news about something. Hooray for Condors and the humans who are helping them. The job isn't complete, but this progress is much better than when the rescue efforts began.

[Arkansas Granny]

3. I thought you might have been talking about the Whooping Crane.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/w/whooping-crane/

Whooping cranes nearly vanished in the mid-20th century, with a 1941 count finding only 16 living birds.

Conservation Efforts

Since then, these endangered animals have taken a step back from the brink of extinction. Captive breeding programs have boosted their numbers, and successful reintroduction efforts have raised the number of wild birds to several hundred.

The massive whooping crane management effort involves numerous U.S. and Canadian governmental agencies, nonprofit organizations, volunteers, and other contributors. The process even includes using ultralight aircraft to lead young whooping cranes on their first southward migration, from Wisconsin to Florida.

[Collimator]

5. Like Emily Litella . . .

I initially read that as "whooping cough". What? I thought we wanted to eradicate whooping cough.


Never mind.

[Tikki]

6. Saw a Cali Condor above the 101 while riding South into Ventura County from Santa Barbara..

They have a gigantic wing span.
On first glance I thought it was some kind of ultra-lite.
Then on a closer look it was a Condor just gliding along above.

Tikki