Tests to Show If Condors Might Mate

The California condor, a species threatened by extinction, may have a new lease on life if a condor captured Wednesday in north Los Angeles County is compatible with a male condor captured earlier this year near the same area.

The problem is, at this point scientists don’t even know if the 20-pound bird captured earlier this week is male or female.

California condors are monomorphic birds, which means scientists have to perform a blood test to determine the bird’s gender. The blood test, which takes about 48 hours, was scheduled for Wednesday night, but zoo officials had to postpone it because of more important lab work.

The results are expected to be ready by Sunday night.

“After a season of setbacks, waiting 48 hours to determine the sex of a bird is nothing compared to waiting two decades to see if any of this works,” said San Diego Zoo spokesman Tom Hanscom.

Even if the condor is female, scientists have to wait until the condor’s breeding season in January to determine if the two birds fancy each other.

Since both birds were hatched in the wild, zoo officials believe the birds are more inclined to mate. But if the birds happen to come from the same blood line, mating would prove disastrous.

“It may turn out that the two birds we just brought in are actually the brother and sister of a pair that has already mated,” Hanscom said. Inbreeding magnifies disorders and genetic traits that might normally be bred out.

No one has bred California condors in captivity.

Fewer than 30 of the large black birds are known to exist. Ten of those are in San Diego at the Wild Animal Park. Another 10 are at the Los Angeles Zoo. Only seven birds are known to exist in the wild.

Under the government’s captive breeding program, California condor team rescue crews wait for breeding pairs to lay eggs, then sneak into the hillside terrain where the birds breed to snatch their eggs and bring them into captivity for artificial hatching.

The teams netted three birds in 1984 but since then 40% of the breeding population has disappeared. Scientists estimate that there is only one breeding pair left in the wild.

Officials suspect that condors have died after feeding on poisoned coyotes or that they became the victims of illegal coyote traps, which emit cyanide poisoning when tripped.

If the pair in captivity cannot mate, Wild Animal Park scientists will have to wait until 1990, when young condors hatched at the San Diego Zoo will become sexually mature to see if a compatible breeding pair exists.