Court Clears the Way for Capture of Condors

At least one of the three California condors remaining in the wild could be trapped within one week because of a court decision lifting an injunction against their capture, an official of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Wednesday.

But capture of the two other birds probably will await recommendations later this summer from organizations involved in trying to save the endangered species, said Rolf Wallenstrom, western regional director for the wildlife service.

One of those groups, the National Audubon Society, won an injunction in U.S. District Court in February, after successfully arguing that wildlife officials had not followed proper administrative procedures in deciding to take the remaining birds into captivity. But the group has decided not to appeal the decision Tuesday by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia to lift the ban.

Wallenstrom said that his office, which recently was given administrative responsibility for managing the condor project, will proceed slowly on trapping the birds.

The one bird targeted for immediate capture is part of the last known breeding pair. Before the other two birds are captured, Wallenstrom wants suggestions from the other organizations involved, including the Audubon Society, the Los Angeles and San Diego zoos and the state Department of Fish and Game.

“I think we can slow down and wait the wisdom” of the organizations, he said, “in terms of taking the remaining two, what to do with them, where to put them?”

Preparations began Wednesday at the Condor Research Center in Ventura to proceed with trapping the male condor who fathered the egg that hatched successfully at the San Diego Wild Animal Park last Friday, said Jesse Grantham, a senior Audubon biologist and spokesman at the condor center.

Researchers probably will set a net trap early next week, as soon as a veterinarian required for such captures arrives in Ventura, Grantham said. The bird will be reunited with his female partner, who was netted last Friday and taken to the San Diego park under a special agreement between Audubon and wildlife service officials before the court decision was announced.

Once the male, known as AC-9 (for adult condor) is captured, only two bachelor males will remain to roam over an 11-million-acre area about 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles, including the 53,000-acre Sespe sanctuary near Ojai. All three condors are equipped with radio transmitters that allow biologists to pinpoint their location at any time. They all feed in the isolated valley where the female condor was trapped last week.

At present, there are 24 California condors in captivity--12 at the Los Angeles Zoo and 12 at the San Diego Zoo. Most were raised from eggs taken from mating couples in the wild. Zoologists hope to breed sufficient numbers of condors at the two zoos in order to reintroduce them into the wild in three to five years.

The nature of the proposed program was at the crux of the Audubon Society’s objections to trapping the remaining birds, a plan announced by the wildlife service last December. Audubon officials claimed that the decision did not consider scientific concerns that no condors have been bred in captivity and that habitat could be destroyed if no condors were living in the wild to instruct birds that eventually might be released.

Those concerns have been modified but not totally satisfied, Audubon officials said Wednesday. Society officials said they hope federal authorities will consult with them and other members of the condor project before trapping the three remaining birds to ensure that a scientific consensus exists.

Hope Babcock, an Audubon attorney in Washington, said, “No matter the ultimate decision about taking the birds in or not, we want it to be made by scientists.”

Bill Toone, associate curator of birds and a condor specialist for the San Diego Zoo, said Wednesday that most scientists believe that the remaining condors should be captured immediately.

“Certainly the habitat is at greater risk without the birds there, but the odds are that with the present mortality rate of the birds, the three out there will be dead within a year, so we’ll be faced with an empty habitat anyways,” Toone said, referring to the deaths of eight condors in the wild during the past two years. “So let’s at least take on the battles with living birds rather than fight it with more dead birds.”