4 younger captive-bred California condors (Gymnogyps californianus) are set to be released on Saturday September 28 at Vermilion Cliffs Nationwide Monument in northern Arizona. The twenty eighth annual occasion celebrating these endangered birds may also be dwell streamed by way of The Peregrine Fund’s YouTube channel, at 1 p.m. MDT/12 p.m. PDT.
The younger condors all hatched at The Peregrine Fund’s World Middle for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho. The Peregrine Fund labored with the Oregon Zoo, Los Angeles Zoo, and San Diego Zoo Safari Park to convey them to Vermilion Cliffs Nationwide Monument to launch the endangered birds into the wild.
Condors are the biggest chook species in North America and an important a part of the ecosystem, however throughout the Eighties, the California condor inhabitants declined to just 22 individuals. The raptors confronted a deadly combination of habitat loss, poaching, lead poisoning, accidents with energy traces, the insecticide Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), and most not too long ago, Extremely Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) or chook flu.
California condors are additionally thought-about sacred to many Indigenous cultures. The Yurok Tribe of the Pacific Northwest call California condors “prey-go-neesh” in Yurok, and the birds have been tied to the Yurok Hlkelonah, or the cultural and ecological panorama, because the starting of time. The tribe has formally been a driving drive on condor reintroduction since 2008. This work and the interdisciplinary California Condor Recovery Program has helped save them from the brink of extinction.
[Related: CT scans look inside a California condor egg.]
As of June 2024, there are 85 condors in the wild within the rugged canyon nation of northern Arizona and southern Utah. The whole world inhabitants of endangered California condors contains more than 560 individuals. Half of those are flying free in Arizona, Utah, California, and Mexico.
The primary condor launch at Vermilion Cliffs Nationwide Monument was on December 12, 1996. The occasion was dwell streamed in 2020 on account of COVID-19 restrictions, reaching over 10,000 viewers. Final yr was the primary yr tha that launch didn’t happen on account of chook flu. The virus killed 21 condors within the Utah-Arizona flock and officers didn’t launch any condors as a technique to forestall further infections.
[Related: Thriving baby California condor is a ray of hope for the unique species.]
In the course of the latest HPAI outbreak, one feminine California condor nestling turned a poster chook for resilience, after her mom died from HPAI and was raised by foster mother and father at The Peregrine Fund’s propagation facility. She is ready to formally enter the wild throughout this yr’s launch occasion.
“This yr’s condor launch will likely be particularly impactful given the losses we skilled in 2023 from HPAI and lead poisoning,” The Peregrine Fund’s California condor program director Tim Hauck said in a statement. “With solely 85 condors remaining within the Utah-Arizona flock and lead poisoning nonetheless a distinguished subject, the discharge of those 4 condors may have a major impression on the restoration program. However the California condor launch this yr isn’t just a celebration of those 4 condors, it’s a second of triumph for the biologists, volunteers, wildlife rehabilitators, restoration companions, and supporters who persevered by the final yr.”
[Related: Inside the Yurok Tribe’s mission to make critically endangered condors thrive.]
The condor crew can’t predict exactly when the birds will decide to leave the release pen, so the live-stream occasion may have a picture-in-picture arrange with a digital camera on the pen. It can additionally embody movies and interviews with the condor biologists and conservationists who work with these particular birds.
This condor conservation effort is a cooperative program by federal, state, and personal companions, together with The Peregrine Fund, the Bureau of Land Administration’s Vermilion Cliffs Nationwide Monument, and the Bureau of Land Administration in Utah (BLM), Arizona Sport and Fish Division, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Grand Canyon, and Zion Nationwide Parks, Utah Division of Wildlife Assets, Kaibab and Dixie Nationwide Forests, and tribes (Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians [Kaibab-Paiute Tribe] and Navajo Nation), amongst a number of different supporting teams and people.
