Andean Condors Finally Begin Eating at Ventura County Future Release Site

Life on the edge of the wild seems to be pleasing the three Andean condors that federal officials took to a release site in rural Ventura County last weekend, biologists said Friday.

After problems earlier in the week in getting two of the birds to eat, all three now are feeding on rodents being offered by their hidden human caretakers, said Mike Wallace, the Los Angeles Zoo biologist in charge of the program to eventually release the three young birds into the wild.

The three Andean condors--two of which were raised by hand-puppet parents--are adjusting to life in a cliffside cave in the Los Padres National Forest north of Fillmore. They will remain there until they are coaxed into flying and begin to seek out their own food, probably in early December.

Wallace said the female condors, which range in age from 3 months to about 5 months, also are showing distinct personalities as they adapt to their new surroundings.

One bird, the most adventurous and feisty, is too small to be the dominant one of the three but might stand a chance in a few months when all three reach their adult weight, Wallace said.

The biggest bird, apparently homesick, welcomed a visit from her puppet mother with a condor’s equivalent of enthusiastic hugs and kisses. “If you can imagine a 17-pound bird just bouncing all over the place and grunting for attention--it was way too much for one arm (with a puppet on it) to handle,” Wallace said.

And the only bird raised by a real condor parents has expressed her trepidation at her new world by lunging out at the others if they get too close. That condor, unlike the other two, still has not ventured out of a wooden enclosure into the larger cave.

Dry Run for California Condors

The experiment is intended to test methods biologists would use in releasing highly endangered California condors into the wild in the 1990s. All 28 of the California species are in zoos in Los Angeles and San Diego, part of a federal breeding program to try to re-establish the species in the wild.

Wallace and other biologists watched the Andean condors especially closely this past week because of the death of a fourth bird during the transfer from Los Angeles to the Ventura County site. The bird apparently died of fright, called shock syndrome, even though it had less of an environmental change than the other three.

Wallace speculated Friday that there may have been a genetic basis to the death. The bird’s parents, which live in Dallas, also have produced one deformed chick and a second egg that didn’t hatch, he said.