Nearly 20 new California condors will fly across the western sky after a record-setting hatching of baby birds this summer at the Los Angeles Zoo.
The zoo marked a record of 17 California condor chicks hatched during this year’s breeding season, with staff members preparing to set the birds into the harsh wild as they are currently protected as an endangered species.
“Our condor team has raised the bar once again in the collaborative effort to save America’s largest flying bird from extinction,” said Rose Legato, curator of birds at the LA Zoo.
Legato said the record number of birds was thanks, in part, to new breeding and rearing techniques developed and implemented by the team. The process places two or three condor chicks together with a single adult surrogate condor to be raised. Usually, the 4in-long eggs are laid in late winter or spring, and take two months to hatch.
The final chick of the season hatched in June, breaking the zoo’s previous record of 15 California condor chicks hatched in one season in 1997. The new chicks will remain under the care of the LA Zoo for about a year and a half before they are sent into the wild.
The condors will be released as part of the recovery program for the California condor, led by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. In 1967, the California condor was listed as endangered by the federal government under the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966, which came before the Endangered Species Act.
Twelve years later, the wildlife service started the California Condor recovery program. The species ranged from California to Florida and western Canada to northern Mexico, but, by 1982, only 22 condors survived in the wild. Those birds remained in captivity and were placed in the agency’s program.
As of December 2023, there were 561 California condors in the world, of which 344 are living in the wild, according to the zoo.
Ashleigh Blackford, the California Condor recovery program coordinator, said that the birds play an important role in the ecosystem because they help eliminate disease and recycle nutrients by feeding on animal carcasses that would otherwise decompose and spread disease.
“California condors are part of nature’s cleanup crew,” said Blackford. “Although it’s not an appealing job, it’s an essential job.”
The LA Zoo, one of the agency’s partners, pioneered the new breeding technique in 2017.
This year, for the first time, the zoo’s condor team implemented a technique allowing three chicks to be raised at the same time by a female to increase the ability to raise condors without human interaction.
“This is a historic moment for the California Condor recovery program and the Los Angeles Zoo’s animal care team,” said Legato.
This process helps breeding pairs produce more than one viable egg in a season. It also makes the birds adjust better to the wild after they are released.
The number of birds in the wild fluctuates due to habitat loss, pesticide contamination, consumption of micro trash in their environment, and lead poisoning from eating lead bullet fragments or shot pellets found in animal carcasses.
Lead poisoning is the main hurdle to recovery of the California condors. Avian influenza is also an increasing threat to the condors. In response to a recent outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza in the western coast of the US, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has been vaccinating condors before releasing them into the wild.
Efforts to protect the condor led to the passage of several laws, including Assembly Bill 821 in 2007 and Assembly Bill 711 in 2013, which established non-lead zones and required the use of non-lead ammunition statewide.
The California condor is the largest land bird in North America, with a wingspan of 9.5ft. Adults are about 3ft tall and weigh between 17-25lbs. They can soar up to 15,000ft and travel as far as 150 miles in a day.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
