CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : SAN FRANCISCO : Panel Recommends Condors’ Release

A scientific panel overseeing efforts to save the endangered California condor has decided that two young condors should be returned to the wild in Ventura County within the next several months. The team’s recommendation will go to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is expected to concur. The scientific panel decided without dissent to prepare three young condors for release at the Sespe Condor Sanctuary in the Las Padres National Forest in Ventura County. The three recently hatched birds will be moved to an enclosed pen at the sanctuary in October or November to get accustomed to the wild. In December or January, two of the three condors will be selected for reintroduction and released along with two Andean condors. The long-awaited reintroduction comes nearly a decade after captive breeding of the species began.