Condor Believed to Be Victim of Stress

A young Andean condor was apparently scared to death Friday night by the trip from the Los Angeles Zoo to a release site in the mountains of Ventura County, officials of the condor recovery program said Monday.

An autopsy done at the San Diego Zoo showed the bird had congestion in its lungs, a symptom of “shock syndrome,” said Joseph J. Dowhan, field supervisor for the condor project.

The bird was one of four being transferred Friday night from San Diego and Los Angeles to a cliffside holding pen that will be used to introduce them to life in the wild in December. The project is a prototype, using the more-plentiful Andean species to pave the way for the eventual release of nearly extinct California condors in the 1990s.

But when the airline-type animal cages were opened about 2 a.m. Saturday at the cliffside pen, the bird hatched at the Los Angeles Zoo was dead. Its body temperature indicated that it had died during the drive from Los Angeles, rather than while being carried on a short trip up the mountain, said Ben Gonzales, a zoo veterinarian who examined it immediately.

‘Cardiovascular’ Collapse

Fluid found in its lungs during the autopsy indicated that it was so stressed during the trip that it died, Gonzales said.

“That’s something that you see in mammals also. Basically, the cardiovascular system collapses, and you get a lot of leakage of fluids into the lungs,” Gonzales said.

“It was a very aggressive bird and just a voracious feeder. So it was surprising that that would be the one that would die. It just goes to show we just don’t know everything there is to know about animals.”

Though officials said stress is likely to be at fault, a final conclusion will not be made until after tests are completed to see whether the bird was diseased.

Meanwhile, the biologist in charge of the experimental release program said Monday that a second bird, which had appeared to be in trouble, had been putting on an act.

Frightened by Noises

“When it would hear noises behind it, noises of the other chicks, it was just too afraid to turn around and look,” said Mike Wallace, birds curator at the Los Angeles Zoo.

Instead, the bird would lie down on the ground limply and feign death. This a behavior often seen among condors when they are netted in the wild, he said.

The 10-member team of scientists, who are watching the birds round the clock through one-way glass, said it had begun eating and acting more normally by Monday.

If all goes well, the Andean chicks will be kept in their cliffside pen until December, when they will gradually be accustomed to flying and looking for food outdoors. The experiment is intended to test release techniques that would be used with the California condors being bred at zoos in Los Angeles and San Diego. A second group of Andean condors will be taken to the release site in October.

Only 28 of the once-widespread California condors remain, all in captivity at the two zoos. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is overseeing a massive program to breed the birds and reintroduce them into the wild, under the auspices of the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The first chick bred in captivity hatched April 29 and is doing well at the San Diego Wild Animal Park.

Chromosome tests showed Monday that the chick, named Molloko, is a female, park officials said. That brings the population of the nearly extinct species to 15 females and 13 males, an almost ideal mix for a breeding program that is seen as the only hope for the species’ survival.