Ailing condor chick rebounding after blood transfusion
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For decades the Los Angeles Zoo has worked to save the endangered California condor. As shown in the 1995 photo above, zookeepers there occasionally helped a chick out of its shell. Now zookeepers at the Oregon Zoo in Portland are also working to raise condors, and the Associated Press reports on recent efforts to save an ailing chick.
According to the AP, Oregon Zoo officials say that after a week of antibiotics and a blood transfusion from an adult condor, the chick has turned the corner and is getting stronger:
Zoo staff have worked feverishly this month to hatch the underweight and shell-bound bird. Monitoring the egg at the zoo’s Jonsson Center for Wildlife Conservation, keepers determined it would not be able to hatch alone. Fearing the chick would suffocate, they stepped in and helped - a worst-case scenario for them. Keepers broke away part of the shell and removed the chick. Condor Curator Shawn St. Michael and condor keepers provide around-the-clock care. A video of the condor chick’s assisted hatch is featured on the zoo’s website.
California’s condors almost became extinct last century, dwindling to 30, and have benefited from a vigorous effort the last two decades by bird lovers and environmentalists to save the iconic bird.
-- Francisco Vara-Orta