Courting Condor Couple Raise Hopes for a Chick

A pair of California condors at the San Diego Wild Animal Park have commenced what curators say is an elaborate and prolonged courtship, raising hopes that the couple may produce next spring the first condor chick conceived and hatched in captivity.

The pair is one of only three pairs believed currently capable of breeding among the 27 California condors known to be living. All 27 have been captured and are being kept at the Wild Animal Park and the Los Angeles Zoo as part of a controversial captive breeding program.

“Hopefully, this is a prelude to breeding the condors in captivity in the spring,” Bill Toone,the park’s curator of birds, said Tuesday. “ . . . To have birds again in the wild is going to depend very much on the reproductive capabilities of the birds in the zoo.”

The two condors--a 7-year-old male designated Adult Condor 4 or AC-4, and an adult female of unknown age designated UN-1 or Unknown 1--began sporadic “courtship behaviors” about a month ago and now appear to be courting some five times a day, Toone said.

During courtship, the male lands near the female, arches its neck, drops its head and spreads its wings as though “every muscle is tense,” Toone said. He then drops his tail, approaches the female with a rocking motion and circles her in the same posture.

Toone said the female may then “neck” with the male, rubbing her neck and head against his. After several minutes, the process usually ends abruptly with the female snapping at the male--an outcome that should become less common over the next few months.

The birds have also begun “investigating the nest area together”--a behavior common in the wild as breeding season approaches. Toone said keepers have observed “more and more traffic in and out of the nest box and roost area” in the condors’ enclosure at the park.

“He’ll have to keep warming her up for several months,” Toone said.

The next step would be mounting and copulation. After that, UN-1 might be expected to lay a single egg within several weeks.

Breeding program officials have not decided whether to “manipulate” the birds’ breeding--that is, remove a first egg in order to encourage more. That decision will be made in conjunction with state and federal officials involved in protecting endangered species.

Single Season

Toone said past experience in the wild indicates that it might be possible to get as many as three eggs in a single season through manipulation.

“This is real encouraging, and I have every hope that it’s going to pan out with eggs and chicks in the coming year,” Toone said.

Toone said he believes that the successful breeding of AC-4 and UN-1 would shatter what he called a myth that condors cannot be bred in captivity. He said it has not been done so far because there have been so few mature condor pairs.

The final challenge, Toone said, will be to prove that condors born and raised in captivity can be reintroduced and survive in the wild. If breeding succeeds this spring, that reintroduction could begin as early as 1990 to 1993, Toone said.