Deukmejian Veto Hinders Condor Preservation Efforts

Disappointed zoo officials in Los Angeles and San Diego made plans Wednesday to slow their preservation program for the highly threatened California condor after Gov. George Deukmejian’s veto Tuesday night of a measure for a sixfold increase in state funding.

The special legislative bill would have provided $1.5 million for captive breeding and releases of the bird, of which only 27 remain in existence--24 in the two zoos and three still in the wild. The veto leaves $270,000 for the program previously budgeted this year.

“The lack of funds really will slow down the whole program,” Bill Toone, associate curator of birds at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, said Wednesday. “It concerns me greatly whether there is understanding about the level of commitment needed for a (successful) program.”

The zoos will have to scale back or postpone plans for additional breeding enclosures, for renovating existing cages to protect the birds better, for building incubation facilities and for biological work in identifying safe areas in Southern California where the birds can eventually be released.

“Expansion depends on money and if the money is not there, we can’t expand,” said Cathleen Cox, research director at the Los Angeles Zoo, where zoologists hope to breed the first California condors in captivity early next year.

“It’s not a very happy day here,” Douglas Meyers, executive director of the San Diego Zoological Society, said Wednesday. “We are very, very disappointed. We thought that the California condor, being the critically endangered species that it is, and because it does bear the name of the state, would have been higher on the (governor’s) list of priorities.”

Both Meyers and Cox strongly praised Assemblywoman Lucy Killea (D-San Diego) for her work in sponsoring the bill, which received overwhelming support in both legislative houses.

“We already are working with Killea’s office on trying to go through the budget process next January,” Cox said.

Deukmejian, in his brief veto message, referred to the special nature of Killea’s proposal to add preservation monies from the state’s environmental license fund without first being included as part of the yearly budgetary process. “Any expansion of the program should be considered through the normal budget process,” he said.

But Killea said Wednesday that the governor’s office had given no hint that her plan would be unsatisfactory during several months of talks with Administration officials beginning last January.

“I just don’t think it is a very nice 70th birthday present to the zoo,” Killea said, referring to today’s celebration at the San Diego Zoo.

Killea is involved in a tight reelection battle as Republicans have targeted her district, which holds an almost equal number of Democrats and Republicans. Killea said that the governor had vetoed five of her bills in the last two days.

Most of the 24 California condors in captivity--12 at San Diego and 12 at Los Angeles--were raised from eggs taken from mating couples in the wild during the first stages of the hoped-for captive breeding program. Zoologists hope to breed sufficient numbers to reintroduce them in the wild in three to five years.

While original plans called for leaving some birds in the wild during the captive breeding, biologists are now trying this fall to capture the three remaining condors--all male--still roaming in the wild over an 11-million-acre area about 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

No federal funds exist for the captive breeding program or for the extensive field work necessary to identify suitable release areas during the next five years. The two zoos have spent more than $1 million each during the last seven years building isolation pens and paying ongoing costs of keeping the birds.

“We spend $160,000 of our own funds each year,” Toone of the Wild Animal Park said. “And it has to be recognized that the park as a facility loses between $1 million and $2 million a year and that this program does not display birds to the public so it does not enhance attendance.”

Meyers added: “Our members here are donating money for a cause they cannot visually participate in, and that is hard to get them to do.”

Both zoos need additional isolation pens in which to place birds expected to be hatched, pens which can cost up to $500,000 given strict state and federal regulations governing treatment of the birds. The medical care for AC-3, a condor captured earlier this year that suffered from lead poisoning and subsequently died, cost $1,400 a day for almost two weeks, Toone said.

“The (vetoed) funds would have paid operating expenses for a year, allowed us to expand and to enhance present facilities,” he said.

“It’s a high-priority program for us and, while we will get the work done--more slowly now so we won’t affect the quality of work--the money could have saved us a whole lot of headaches.”

David Smollar reported from San Diego and Kenneth F. Bunting from Sacramento.