Can Andean Condors Help Save California Kin?

An unprecedented plan to place Andean condors into the habitat of the endangered California condor, to assess the danger to captive California condors before they are returned to nature, has been proposed by a special team of experts.

The controlled experiment, being evaluated by federal wildlife officials, would release as many as 15 juvenile Andean condors, all of the same sex, at two sites in Los Padres National Forest northwest of Los Angeles. The test would be done after the three California condors still remaining in the wild are captured and placed with 24 other members of the species now held for breeding at the Los Angeles and San Diego zoos.

All the Andean condors would be radio-tagged and trapped at the conclusion of the two-year experiment and before the first bred-in-captivity California condors are released.

The proposal for testing release and feeding techniques could prove controversial because scientists in general are loathe to release exotic species into habitats of native relatives for fear of hybridization and the possibility that they might usurp the environment.

The plan could require more than a year of review by federal and state agencies before necessary permits are issued.

“I know the proposal seems radical--the novelty of doing this for the first time--but if you pare away the sensationalism, it’s actually kind of mundane,” said Lloyd Kiff, director of the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology and chairman of the California Condor Recovery Team.

The team of 11 experts unanimously made the recommendation to the California condor coordinator of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who will make a final decision on applying for permits after discussions with numerous environmental and public-interest groups, scheduled to begin soon. The team was appointed by the coordinator earlier this year--after settlement of a dispute over whether to trap the remaining birds--to provide scientific advice concerning the program’s future.

The team’s action comes as biologists are attempting to trap the final three California condors because their safety in nature can no longer be guaranteed. The birds will be placed in the two zoos and added to seven other adults previously caught in the wild and 17 juveniles raised in captivity from eggs taken from nests in the Los Padres National Forest breeding area.

Although no mating has yet taken place in the two zoos, scientists expect to be successful and have offspring to release back into the wild in about five years. For that reason, Kiff said the team wants to begin preparing now to minimize the risk of mortality for those birds.

“Anything we can do to minimize the chances of failure is a positive step,” Kiff said. “Losses of the California condor will of course be inevitable, but it will hurt the release program to lose one right off the bat.”

A San Diego biologist now working jointly for the two zoos released and followed Andean condors in Peru in 1980-1984 specifically to develop reintroduction techniques for the California condor, a close relation to the Andean bird. Mike Wallace, who will coordinate any Andean program here, expressed confidence in a carefully controlled and monitored experiment based on his doctoral thesis work in Peru. The Andeans would come from already well-established breeding programs in zoos nationwide.

While scientists have occasionally used closely related species to boost survival in the wild, such as placing eggs of the whooping crane--an endangered species--in sandhill crane nests, both species have always been native to the habitats.

But even though the Andean condor is an exotic species native only to South America, its introduction into California, scientists believe, would answer several key questions necessary to increase the survival of California condors:

- Can birds be kept in protected areas through placement of food or will they drift into other areas of the range? Kiff said that the team would like to have condors remain in the Los Padres area initially and only gradually gravitate back into the foothills of the southern San Joaquin Valley. Many condors have died in the foothill areas from eating deer carcasses that were filled with lead after being shot by hunters.

“You have to accept the notion that we are going to have to manage the species,” Kiff said.

- Can the birds find thermals, the columns of warm air that rise from coastal canyons, on which they depend for soaring? Are there power lines or other man-placed objects that will interfere with flight? Can animal predators be identified and controlled?

“We don’t want or anticipate losing Andean condors but (if we do) they are not nearly as endangered as the Californians,” Wallace said. “Monetarily, a California condor might be worth $500,000. Genetically, it is invaluable.”

- Can the birds be weaned away gradually from humans once released? Wallace said that he needed eight months to get Andean condors in Peru to find food other than the carcasses supplied by his field biologists. In addition, the experiment will test whether the two zoos are following breeding techniques with both Andean and California condors that avoid making the birds too tame for release. “We won’t know until we release them,” said Wallace.

“There’s a hell of a lot of work involved here,” he said. “We have to assure all the various groups--Sierra Club, Audubon, etc.--that we are not going to be substituting Andeans for the California condor, that this is a timed, controlled experiment.”

Kiff added: “My only concern is not biological but political: I don’t want to end up with tremendous battles over getting permitting. That’s not worth it.