Tejon Condor Reserve Plan Ruffles Feathers

When real estate executive Robert Stine was hired by the Tejon Ranch Co. in 1996, his task was to transform a slumping Kern County farming operation into a prosperous development firm. But first he had to deal with a huge, prehistoric vulture that liked to hang out along the ranch’s mountainous backbone.

Now, eight years later, Stine is confident he has solved his condor problem while also paving the way for construction of a new city and a sprawling mountain resort on the vast ranch 50 miles north of Los Angeles.

“We’re going to have a ranch estate nestled under those oak trees,” Stine said last week, pointing to towering trees amid golden grass on a mountainside.

“But the next 37,000 acres, for the next four or five ridges, we’re working to provide a study area, a breeding area, a feeding area for the California condor.”

Tejon Ranch has pledged to set aside a preserve for the endangered bird on the ranch’s wildest backcountry -- about 100 square miles of rugged ridgelines up to 6,800 feet high -- but only if the federal government will shield the company from liability if condors are accidentally harmed or killed by ranch activities or development.

It’s a plan hatched from Tejon Ranch’s lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1997, nurtured by a tentative settlement of that suit in 1999 and now proposed by Tejon as a way to help North America’s largest bird survive while honoring the landowner’s property rights.

The plan was quietly announced on the Federal Register on June 25 and discovered by outraged environmental groups two weeks later. It is now the target of criticism by those convinced that the wildlife agency -- which last week indicated it may not be in full agreement with the plan -- has thrown in with the devil.

“They throw out the usual pabulum about trying to help the bird,” said Lloyd Kiff, a onetime leader in the federal condor recovery program, about Tejon Ranch. “But they’re sort of the antichrist of the condor movement.”

Some other leaders in the 25-year, $35-million federal program to save the majestic red-eyed vulture are also critical of aspects of the tentative plan. But they say it may be the best possible deal for the condor, given Tejon Ranch’s legal rights.

“I think it’s a pretty good compromise,” said Bruce Palmer, former coordinator of the condor recovery program for U.S. Fish and Wildlife and an architect of the Tejon Ranch condor plan.

“People will be in close proximity to condors, and condors don’t do too well with people things,” he said. “But the net result comes out more good for condors than bad.”

The controversy surrounding Tejon Ranch and the condor is typical of debate throughout California when large-scale development pushes into vital wildlife habitat.

But the debate is intensified for the 270,000-acre Tejon Ranch, because it is also a key link in a wildlife corridor that connects the Sierra Nevada range with coastal mountains and the ocean. Indeed, the ranch is negotiating the sale of 100,000 acres, perhaps including the proposed condor preserve, to an environmental land trust.

The ranch’s highlands are home to mule deer, badgers, mountain lions, bears and elk. And its lowlands are habitat for the endangered San Joaquin kit fox, the rare blunt-nosed leopard lizard and the California burrowing owl.

Then there is the condor, a standard-bearer for California endangered species. Though numbering in the hundreds a century ago, only 27 remained alive when the last one was taken into captivity in 1987. After flourishing in the program, their release began in 1992. Today, 99 live in the wild, including 47 in California.

The birds migrate to Tejon Ranch from as far away as Big Sur to hang out along wind-swept ridgelines. They forage for animal carcasses and rest in trees. And they ride thermal winds that push them like air bubbles thousands of feet into the sky.

But between those Tejon Ranch ridges and Interstate 5 about five miles away, ranch executives hope to build the Tejon Mountain Resort -- a golf course development of at least hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of luxury homes on five- to 20-acre lots.

To keep the curious and sometimes destructive condors from being drawn to the new development, ranch officials have pledged that all new dwellings would be low profile, away from ridgelines and without alluring patios. And all utility lines would be buried.

Plans also include having a biologist stationed on the ranch to frighten away the birds if they land on houses or swoop into backyards.

Such precautions are important because several birds have died after hitting power lines, drinking antifreeze, eating shiny objects and ingesting lead bullets. Tejon Ranch has pledged an education program to recommend the use of nonlead bullets during ranch hunts.

Tejon Ranch’s proposed construction of another development -- the giant Centennial project, a city of 70,000-- is less of a potential problem for condors because of its lower elevation and unfavorable winds, ranch and federal officials said.

At least 10 miles from the condor’s favorite resting spots, the site is on the Antelope Valley floor at 3,200 feet and on the back side of the Tehachapi Mountains, where winds press downward.

But Robert Mesta, coordinator of the condor recovery program during the 1990s, said he’s not convinced the birds will stay away.

“Condors fly over that area, and they’re attracted to development,” he said. “There are a whole range of possibilities, and none of them are good.”

The full Tejon Ranch Condor Habitat Conservation Plan is expected to be released this fall and would probably be ruled on by the Wildlife Service in 18 months, officials say. But its sketchy outlines already have environmentalists rallying against it.

“Developers always say they’ll give you half and they’ll take half,” said Adam Keats, attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity in Oakland. “But with the condor, we’re not talking about something where half can be taken. This area is absolutely critical to the survival of the condor.”

The most controversial aspect of the habitat plan is Tejon Ranch’s request for a federal “incidental take” permit that would shield it from lawsuits if condors are accidentally harmed. “What we need is for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to do their job and to protect the condor,” Keats said.

Tejon Ranch’s Stine said such a permit is needed for the ranch to do its business, while also helping to preserve the condor. He said he’s sure federal officials will issue the permit so the parties can finally end the ranch’s 1997 lawsuit.

Tejon Ranch sued after it was refused the same type of legal protections the service had granted Arizona landowners before condors were released there in 1996.

Federal officials maintained that Arizona landowners qualified for different treatment under the Endangered Species Act. The Arizona program was considered experimental because condors had not been seen there for almost a century, they said. By comparison, condors still soared along Tejon Ranch ridges until taken into captivity.

The service also denied Tejon Ranch’s request to undertake a habitat conservation plan -- like the current one -- that could also have led to strong legal protections for the ranch.

“All we asked was that when they reintroduced the condor, that they not take away the use of our private lands,” Stine said. “All we wanted was a balance.”

Under the settlement, ranch and federal experts have been working for the last four years to refine a habitat plan.

Indeed, they seemed to be speaking in concert until last week, when Fish and Wildlife officials said they expected to issue a limited “incidental take” permit that would allow only the hazing or harassing of the condor to shoo it away from humans. If a bird were injured or killed during that hazing, that would be covered too, said Vicki Campbell, of Fish and Wildlife’s regional office in Sacramento.

However, she said federal experts were convinced that no condor injuries or deaths would occur because of Tejon Ranch’s activities. But if any do, legal coverage for Tejon “will depend on the circumstances. It depends on how the ultimate HCP gets developed. We won’t know how all that plays out until we get to the very end and make a decision.”

Stine said the permit must give the ranch full legal “incidental take” protections, not limited ones.