A California condor in the recovery program
One of our Condor Cam viewers asked for information about Igor, one of the original condors in the California Condor Recovery Program. As I recall, Igor was the “house name” for a condor known officially as AC-9. Back in the mid- to late 80s, the field crews who were tracking and photographing the last remaining wild condors gave him that name. Igor became famous as the last California condor to be taken out of the wild, on April 19, 1987.
Igor was brought to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park and stayed here until late 1988, when he was sent to the Los Angeles Zoo. A few years later, he was released to the wild and is still there today, living in and around the Hopper National Wildlife Refuge in Ventura County.
As a fun sidelight item, his parents were the same as Sisquoc’s, the male condor you can watch daily on our popular Condor Cam. Sisquoc was the first California condor to hatch in captivity from an egg taken from a wild nest in 1983.
Another tidbit: after there were no breeding pairs left in the wild in 1986, and no hope of reproduction, Igor was paired with an older female condor (AC-8) at the Los Angeles Zoo who had lost her mate. They ended up producing a fertile egg that was brought to the Safari Park. That chick hatched and was named Nojoqui, who is still here today and has an egg due to hatch around March 4!
Don Sterner is an animal care manager at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.
How fascinating! What is the average lifespan of the california condor?
Moderator’s note: Up to 60 years. You might enjoy reading about condors in the San Diego Zoo Animals site.
Your blog shows what a small world it is for California Condors. Thank you to all those working to make it bigger!
Thank you for all this very interesting information; I had no idea… Did Nojoqui’s egg also get switched with a wooden placeholder until it begins to hatch?
Nojoqui’s egg was taken from a wild nest and not replaced with a “dummy egg.” Normally the recovery team would have tried to get the pair to double (or in this case triple) clutch, and that would not happen if a placeholder egg was left with them.
I love these updates Don because thanks to the condor cam, we now can relate much better with them. Anytime you want to write more of the condor history, I would love to read it.
Thanks for the great information Don! Keep up the great work with those magnificent birds!
a bit off topic but if I remember correctly Sisquoc and Shatash’s new egg may be hatching in a couple of weeks. pretty exciting. it was fun watching Saticoy grow up in 2012.
So thankful for those who had the vision to breed and raise them to be reintroduced to the wild. Yeah team!
off topic but there is a contest for predicting when Sisquoc and Shatash’s new egg will hatch.
https://secure3.convio.net/sdzoo/site/SPageNavigator/condor_hatch.html
Moderator’s note: Yes! Please enter, everyone!