A California condor is introduced to a temporary release structure built in the cliffs of a release site.

In 1985, the wild population of California condors consisted of nine individuals. Critically endangered due to loss of habitat and environmental hazards, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service moved these last remaining wild birds into conservation breeding programs as part of the California Condor Recovery Program. Seven years later in 1992, the California Condor Recovery Team, a multi-agency effort, was able to reintroduce the condor back into the California skies and has since brought the species back from the brink of extinction.
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Radio transmitters, along with more sophisticated GPS-satellite transmitters; attached to each wing, allow us to keep track of short and long distance movements. Trailing from each transmitter, vinyl tags display numbers large enough for the birds to be identified at some distance with binoculars whether the bird is sitting or flying. These “stud book” numbers are each bird’s personal ID and are never repeated.
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Option 1: Wednesday, February 6th (6PM)
Option 2: Saturday, February 9th (10AM)
Location: Ventura FWS Office: 2493 Portola Road, Suite A Ventura

The Santa Barbara Zoo, in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, will be training nest monitors for the 2008 season as part of the California Condor Recovery Program. The 2007 season was the first year of our Nest Guarding Program, and we are proud to report that 100 percent of the chicks fledged! This is an unprecedented accomplishment and we invite you to join us as we undertake our second season of nest guarding. The training will cover topics including:
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A male California condor sunbathes in his enclosure after arriving at the Chapultepec Zoo from the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park in 2007.

The General Direction of Zoological Parks and Wildlife in Mexico City administers Chapultepec, San Juan de Aragon and Los Coyotes Zoos. It develops activities mainly directed towards research, education and conservation. Over the past few years, all three zoos have been involved in various research and conservation projects, mainly related to native species but including also exotic species as Mexican wolf, volcano rabbit, big horn sheep, giant panda, Xochimilco’s axolotl and many others. Recently, as part of the Strategic Collection Plan of our institution, we have included the California condor for education, research and conservation purposes.

Chapultepec Zoo is one of the most popular recreational sites in Mexico City for local visitor and for tourists from Mexico and abroad. It is considered to be the national zoo in our country receiving more than 5 million visitors every year. This gives us the opportunity to educate visitors and help them learn what is going on with our ecosystems and our endangered fauna and flora.

A female juvenile California condor takes her first flight into the wilderness in Baja California’s Sierra San Pedro de Martir release site.

Only a few hundred years ago, the California condor ranged from British Columbia to Baja California, Mexico. As European pioneers settled within its range, the species declined dramatically to near extinction in the mid-1980s. Working with Mexican partners, the San Diego Zoo’s Applied Animal Ecology Division has embarked on a long-term program to restore the California condor to the mountains of northern Baja California, Mexico. Given their flight capabilities, it is anticipated that reintroduced condors will ultimately range from the Pacific Coast to the Gulf of California, as well as northward across the U.S. border, providing an important link to existing reintroduced populations in California.
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Two condors were transported to the Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City from the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park.

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4 de junio, 2007

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Dos machos Condores de California arribaron a la ciudad de Mexico este lunes en medio de una gran recepcion, tras haber viajado mas de 2,917 km. desde el San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park hasta su nuevo hogar en el Zoologico de Chapultepec “Alfonso L. Herrera.”
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April 5, 2007

California condor No. 321 has taken an historic flight, flying across the United States and Mexico border Wednesday. The last documented sighting of a California condor in San Diego County was in 1910.

“The aim of the California Condor Recovery Program is to unite the southern region of the condor’s range in Mexico with the birds in California,” said Mike Wallace, Ph.D., Zoological Society of San Diego scientist and the California Condor Recovery Program team leader. “This first flight into San Diego County could be the beginning of the connection between these two populations.”
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Addra gazelle calf

Here we are again! (See Tina’s previous blog, Where the Deer and the Antelope Play.) The calves in the nursery at the Wild Animal Park are growing up and most are soon to be weaned, which is always a fun endeavour. Nukie, the gerenuk, broke her leg. Now she has a cute, pink cast, complete with smiley faces. It is so her! The cast hasn’t dampened her spirits. She still prances around and is as funny as ever.
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4 a.m., 20 degrees Fahrenheit… total darkness, total silence…the crystalline stillness of an isolated alpine wilderness in winter. Nothing for company but me and the smelly carcass of an old goat that has been chained to the rocks just outside my camouflaged blind. Condors are late risers, preferring to sun themselves and preen on their roosts until the morning has warmed their wings and the thermal air currents that enable them to soar for hours without a single wing flap.
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