California’s Last Condor in Wild Captured

Biologists captured the last California condor in the wild at the Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge on Sunday, and for the first time in 15,000 years, the foothills of Southern California are absent a familiar sight.

Trapping of that condor--commonly known as “The Los Angeles County bird” for his cliff-side birthplace near Saugus seven years ago--leaves not one of his species in the wild, where scientists said they have lived since the early Pleistocene Era.

The male bird was taken in good condition from the refuge in the foothills of Kern County southwest of Bakersfield to the San Diego Wild Animal Park. He will join a captive breeding program at the San Diego and Los Angeles zoos for the 27 remaining birds of the highly endangered species.

Releases Planned

Scientists hope to be able to release birds from the breeding program over the next decade.

But until they do, the majestic condors--with their 9 1/2-foot wingspan and golden head coloring--will no longer soar on thermal air currents up to 100 miles a day from the Santa Barbara coast to eastern Tulare County.

Biologist Pete Bloom, watching a goat carcass bait from a hidden pit, fired a cannon net over the condor--officially labeled AC-9--as it fed in the steep canyons of the new national wildlife refuge, formerly known as Hudson Ranch, a longtime foraging site for the large bird.

It was the culmination of nearly six months of sometimes frustrating fieldwork. Bloom and other members of the condor trapping team moved quickly to calm the bird and place it in a portable shelter for transport by car to the San Diego facility.

Team members had mixed emotions as AC-9 was driven away, certain that they were helping to save the species but keenly aware that in looking at the condor, they were seeing the last thing that a saber-toothed tiger might have seen 15,000 years ago while sinking in the La Brea Tar Pits. Condor skeletons have been found in the pits and dated back to that time.

Twinge of Sadness

Audubon Society researcher Greg Sanders said he felt a twinge of sadness after the trapping Sunday while driving back to his Bakersfield home through the hills that until several years ago were home to numerous soaring condors.

“You look over the area of their last stronghold and feel awful hollow in a way,” Sanders said, “even though it’s not like we don’t have a good population in the zoos for breeding.”

Ironically, AC-9, the last condor to be taken from the wild, was also the first such bird ever handled by members of research and trapping teams when a monitoring program began in 1980, and has been the most closely watched of all condors under the program.

Marti Pletcher, a team member from the California Department of Fish and Game who watched the capture, recalled seeing AC-9 when he was a 1-month-old hatchling discovered in a cliff-side nest near Saugus.

‘Overgrown Game Fowl’

“He was so cute, sort of like an overgrown game fowl,” Pletcher said.

AC-9 was captured and radio-tagged, then released, in December, 1984, as part of the ongoing tagging program, which at the time was intended to leave breeding pairs in the wild and capture only young condors and obtain fertile eggs for captive breeding in Los Angeles and San Diego.

But after all but one breeding pair died over the fall and winter of 1984-85--a total of six birds--a still controversial decision was made to bring in all remaining condors. AC-9 was part of the last breeding pair. His mate, AC-8, was captured the same day in June, 1986, that their one offspring hatched successfully at the San Diego Wild Animal Park.

The now 1-year-old chick, known as Nojoqui, was taken as a fertile egg from the cliff-side nest of the two birds last spring. AC-8 now resides at Los Angeles Zoo and is showing signs of mating with another male captured last year.

AC-9 ‘Incredibly Curious’

“So he (AC-9) has a long history with us and we know a great deal about him,”’ Bloom said. “He is an incredibly curious bird. In the past he flew close over bluffs with 100 or more bird watchers on it, swooping down close for a look.

“In many ways, he has acted like no other condor.”

As of Feb. 27, he became like no other condor when another male, AC-5, was caught in the Tejon Pass area and flown to the San Diego park.

“Even that day was spooky, really eerie, since AC-9 hung around on a nearby tree and watched us take AC-5 away,” Bloom said. “We’ve never had another condor stay around like that” during a capture.

But AC-9 frustrated the best efforts of his would-be captors until Sunday. The inquisitive condor almost seemed to know he was being lured to bait several times during the last month as he hopped around, but not on, the carcass left for him. Attempts to trap AC-9 took place both at Bitter Creek and at Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge in the coastal mountains of Ventura County northeast of Fillmore.

Question of Safety in Wild

“Who knows?” said Bloom. “Maybe he (sensed) something was different, given the fact there were no other condors around.”

The decision to bring in all remaining birds was made after the six condors disappeared because officials believed that they could no longer guarantee the condors’ safety in nature. Only one of the six condors was ever found, a victim of lead poisoning from eating bullet fragments, possibly in a deer carcass killed by hunters.

But most trapping was held up more than eight months, until August of last year, in large part because of legal action brought by the National Audubon Society. The society feared that the condor habitat would not be protected if no birds were in the wild. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has since purchased the 11,000-acre Hudson Ranch, where the capture was made, as a new refuge for the condor and other animals. Numerous condors have been trapped in the past at the ranch.

Zoo officials hope to see the first breeding in captivity either this year or next, with initial releases between 1990 and 1992 after a sufficient number of genetically diverse birds are raised and a management program for protecting their habitat is drawn up. Before the move to capture all the birds, some were to be left in nature as guide birds for the born-in-captivity condors eventually to be released.

Now, there are proposals to release Andean condors temporarily into the California habitat to test release and feeding techniques planned for the California condor. The Andean birds would all be of the same sex and would be captured before any California birds were released.