Season’s First Condor Egg Sped to Wild Animal Park

The first California condor egg of the 1985 season was taken from its nest in a snowy, mountainous region of Santa Barbara County Sunday and rushed by helicopter to the San Diego Wild Animal Park, where it will be kept in an incubator until it hatches in mid-April.

Park spokeswoman Martha Baker said the egg, which arrived at the park in an insulated suitcase just after 5 p.m., is fertile, weighs 275.9 grams and is apparently in good condition.

It is the 13th egg to be harvested and brought to San Diego and the first that will be hatched at the park. Formerly, the eggs were hatched in laboratories at the San Diego Zoo and later transferred to the park. Researchers hope to avoid any potential harm to the fragile chicks by eliminating the transfer procedure.

Eight eggs were brought to San Diego last year and four were flown in during 1983, the California Condor Recovery Program’s first year.

Of the 12, 2 died of genetic complications last year and 10 are successfully living in captivity, with 4 remaining at the Wild Animal Park and 6 being prepared for release into the wild by biologists at the Los Angeles Zoo.

The recovery plan is modeled on programs that helped save the whooping crane and the peregrine falcon from near extinction, and to boost the Andean condor population in Peru.

The few remaining condors in the wild live throughout Santa Barbara, Ventura and northern Los Angeles counties. Baker said the parents of the egg that arrived Sunday have previously provided two female chicks--Almiyi, hatched in May, 1983, and Ojai, hatched in April, 1984.