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QuickTake:
For the first time in 122 years, a condor flew over Oregon, part of a group managed by the Yurok Tribe. This may be the beginning of a natural condor resettling in Oregon, likely to include Lane County.
Meriwether Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, wrote to Thomas Jefferson in 1805 about a bird they shot along the Columbia River that had a 9-foot wingspan.
“I believe this is the largest bird of North America.” Lewis was right, and that bird, called prey-go-neesh in the Yurok language, was named the California condor by naturalist George Shaw.
They survived in Oregon until 1904, when the last one was seen south of Eugene-Springfield. By 1987, the entire worldwide population was only 22 California condors. But in May, something miraculous happened: The California condor made its return to Oregon skies.
It was the end result of a Hail Mary plan hatched to move all those remaining birds to human care and begin a breeding program at the Oregon Zoo and three other locations.
Some environmentalists objected, like Friends of the Earth founder David Brower, who said condors had rights. They just needed habitat where they could live “unmolested by biologists.”
But John Seibert Farnsworth, writing for the Center for Humans and Nature, said, “environmental righteousness is only an attitude, not an argument.”
Brower notwithstanding, the condor breeding program has been a soaring success, now with over 600 birds, most of them back in the wild. Farnsworth says, “These are the Harley-Davidsons of the bird world: big, fast, noisy, and yet stable enough to cause a fellow to change his [sic] religion.”
I recently saw condors as they flew overhead at Pinnacles National Park in California. It was breathtaking, even at a distance, to see this colossus of the skies, with its distinctive white underwings and splayed wingtips, still endangered, but back from the brink of extinction.
As an apex scavenger, condors help clean up some of the largest carrion. Along with other large birds, they have inspired new wing designs in aircraft, wind turbines and drones. And lessons learned from the almost 40-year-long condor program are helping other endangered species, such as the black-footed ferret.
The biggest threat to condors is poisoning from carrion killed by lead bullets. California is the only state that has banned lead ammunition, while Oregon has a piecemeal program. The threat is so serious that all condors are radio tagged, trapped once or twice a year, tested, and if necessary, treated.
On May 29, the Oregon Zoo announced that condors there “have produced 15 healthy chicks this year — the most ever in the zoo’s 23-year effort to save this critically endangered species.”
Starting May 12, the Yurok Tribe’s restoration program recorded condor B9’s flight across the California border and into Oregon, where it reached its northernmost point over the Medford area before banking west toward the coast. This 2-year-old condor was exploring new territory, flying 80 historic miles over Oregon, with the expectation of many more trips to come.
Oregon Zoo director Heidi Rahn said, “It’s been a dream for many Oregonians to see a California condor soar over our state again, and B9’s journey has made that dream real.”
