Number of Breeding Condor Pairs Drops to 2

The number of known breeding pairs of the endangered California condor is down from five to two, according to officials of the California Condor Recovery Program.

“It’s certainly, at this point, a devastating blow to the program,” said Bill Toone, assistant curator of birds for the Zoological Society of San Diego.

Toone and bird keepers at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, where eggs from the breeding pairs are brought to increase the stock of captive birds, were prepared to receive up to 13 eggs from the wild this breeding season, which ends in May. So far, only one egg has been airlifted to the park and placed in an incubator, where it will hatch next month. Now, with the reported loss of 60% of the breeding pairs, Toone said, “we will be quite tickled if we manage to see three” eggs.

The birds hatched at the California condor complex at the park will be added to the captive population of 16. Of the 11 birds known to exist in the wilderness, there are the two nesting pairs, and seven unpaired birds, including two that are not yet adult.

Actual Population Unknown

Observers reported that only single birds have been spotted in three areas where couples nested last season. The actual number of birds remaining in the wild will not be known until September when feather patterns change, allowing biologists to identify individuals.

Toone said Friday that the loss of breeding pairs is “not something that was totally unexpected. For the last two years, we counted our blessings that we were not losing pairs . . . the odds have caught up with us. The mortality that we expected just seems to have come up all at once.

“As dismal as the news is, there is not one of us who says this is the end of the road,” he said. “We still have a great deal of optimism for the program and for the species. The key, at this point, with these catastrophic losses, is that it is all the more reason to manage the species and continue the kind of programs we’re doing and to move as fast as we can.”

J. Michael Scott, director of the Condor Research Center in Ventura, called the losses “a serious blow,” adding that more emphasis now will be placed on captive proliferation to save the endangered species.

Time Running Out

He said the maximum number of eggs that can be laid by the two known remaining pairs is five. Time is an enemy, though; less than two months remain in the breeding season.

The California condor, the largest bird in North America with a nine-foot wingspan, appeared doomed until the state and federal governments stepped in six years ago with programs designed to nurture a new population in captivity for eventual release to the wild.