This informative booklet gives an overview of the natural history of California condors and discusses the recovery efforts of the program in Baja California, Mexico. It is written in English and Spanish.
Condors Come Home to Baja (download PDF to print. This is a large file and may take several minutes to complete.)
The chick stage brought many more hours of observation and entries. In all 18 entries were performed on the six nests during the chick stage. All four nests were found to have trash items of varying degrees during this period (19-233 items). Metal detection and palpation identified metal and foreign bodies many times during chick exams but this did not always translate to stunted development or poor body condition, which were the indicators we used for intervention. There was one occasion of removing trash from the crop of a chick (60-day-old No. 428) while at the nest.
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January has seen the commencement of a five-month forest elephant survey in the Ebo Forest, Cameroon, by the San Diego Zoo’s Central Africa Regional Program, funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s African Elephant Conservation Fund.
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I know it’s been a few months since I’ve written about the love of my life, momma Pallas’ cat (see blog, Pallas’ Cat: Crate Training 101). But in fairness, not much has changed. The crate training I was working on was a success, although I had to give the crate back, so it’s been awhile. She is still “enrichment challenged”: stares at me, avoids it while I’m watching. Yet always there are signs of having been explored when I come in the next day. We went through our usual winter weight gain (yes, we). So, that brought out that stubborn streak I love so much. For those of you who have cats, it’s tough to make them do something they don’t want to do, especially when food isn’t a motivation. Nonetheless, she continues to make me smile, and I can’t imagine my day without her being a part of it.
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One of the major foci of the San Diego Zoo’s Giant Panda Conservation Unit is our bear maternal care study. This study seeks to characterize and better understand the early postpartum period in as many bear species as possible. Thus far, we have complete data sets on the denning phase of the giant panda and American black bear. We have some data on brown bears and sun bears and are actively seeking to collect more. But many of the more threatened bear species remain unrepresented in our study thus far.
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After the suspicious death of condor #390, the most subordinate condor of the 16 free flying birds in Baja, we stepped up our routine annual health exams for the 22 condors both captive and free flying in Baja. On Sunday, November 18, 2007, we discovered 5 out of 8 birds tested to have high lead poisoning using the field lead care kit (HIGH being 65 ug/dl, the limit of the equipment). On Friday, November 23, all five condors were transported to the Wild Animal Park’s Harter Veterinary Medical Center, a USDA-approved quarantine facility, and chelation treatment was initiated.
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The US Fish & Wildlife Service is happy to announce the successful end of the 2007 breeding season in the Southern California condor population. The fourth and final California condor chick, No. 449 (aka WC17), fledged on Thursday, Dec. 6. This flight was a distance of 25 meters and was 15 seconds in duration. The bird was 208 days old at time she fledged. The California population produced four chicks this season, condors No. 428 (WC13), 443 (WC15), 449 (WC17) and 450 (WC18), all of which fledged. Currently, fledgling survivorship is 75 percent. Unfortunately, condor No. 443 died shortly following the October 2007 Ranch Fire. All chicks this season are females and are being monitored via radio telemetry and visual observation. We are still keeping track of chick/parent interactions and their movements as they move away from their natal sites.
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With the last chick to fledge we have paused to take a short reprieve from what has been 11 months of intensively monitoring nesting condors. This was just in time for the holidays and to start all over again as pairs have already been observed in courtship behaviors at feeding and roost sites. Volunteer observers helped comprise the first line of defense against nest failure.
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Condors with lead poisoning were returned from the Baja California release site to the Harter Veterinary Medical Center at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park for treatment.
Finally, the seven young cubs in the Lion Camp pride at the Wild Animal Park are old enough to explore the exhibit with their proud moms, Mina and Oshana! (See Marcia’s previous blog, Lion Cubs Named!) The two litters, born a few days apart in November 2007, are now coordinated enough to avoid the edge of the moated exhibit and to enjoy the many wonders to which they now have access. There are trees and rocks to climb, grass to roll in, and even their own Land Rover to play on, not to mention views of giraffes, rhinos, and assorted antelope species!
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