Llamas to the Rescue : They Will Carry Food Deep Into the Wilderness for Young Condors

Balancing a 30-pound pack of briquettes on his back, Fritz’l the llama trained Saturday for upcoming treks into the Sespe Condor Sanctuary, where he and his partner will carry calf carcasses to feed endangered vultures.

In a few weeks, Fritz’l and Marvin will complete their arduous preparation--a crash course that will lead them tramping through brush, jumping over logs and scrambling up rugged hillsides, bearing 60-pound loads.

The young llamas then will be taken by truck to the wilderness north of Fillmore. From there, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists will lead them up several miles of narrow, rocky trails packing stillborn calves to two California condors and their two South American cousins.

Until now, six biologists who have monitored the condors since October as part of a breeding program have been their own beasts of burden, carrying 30-pound packs of beef to the birds’ feeding areas.

“The trails are long and hard,” said U.S. field biologist Chris Barr. “For us to be carrying the carcasses on our backs has been a real workout. Putting it on the llamas relieves us, and keeps us going for the rest of the day so we can monitor the condors.”

Now that the condors are a year old, they have become curious enough to fly into populated areas where the scientists fear the birds will be injured. But they have not learned to scavenge carrion to survive--a fact that scientists say is not surprising because the birds are not being raised by their parents.

“It’s a very interesting stage of their life,” field biologist David Ledig said of the Chumash-named condors, Chocuyens and Xewe. “They’re like a newborn. They’re taking everything in at this point.”

The biologists hope that the condors will eventually be able to feed themselves, as two Andean condors raised in an experimental program did after two years.

“We want these birds to be 100% wild,” said field biologist Doug Laye, who tracks condors in the backcountry. “We don’t want to baby-sit these birds for the rest of our lives.”

After deciding it is time to draw the condors deeper into the wilderness where they can learn to forage for their own food, the biologists began searching for other beasts to tote the loads of calf meat.

The biologists experimented unsuccessfully with easily excitable horses, and then dismissed mules as too rough on the terrain. So they considered llamas.

“Llamas are sure-footed, they’re calmer on the trail,” field biologist Jennifer Gibson said. “A lot of horses will spook.” Gibson fed the llamas alfalfa pellets out of her hand Saturday afternoon.

The animals are also “environmentally correct,” because they have soft pads rather than hoofs, said Robert Mesta, the condor program coordinator.

“We can pack them on these remote trails and they’ll probably leave less of an imprint than a hiker,” he said.

Fritz’l and Marvin were donated to the California Condor Recovery Program by Sig Lichter, who started breeding llamas at his ranch in Frazier Park in 1978.

“I was so glad because I felt that one species on the brink of extinction . . . is going to help another one to survive,” Lichter said. Llamas, Lichter said, are also endangered because of rampant cross-breeding with alpacas, a related species. Their offspring are infertile.

As babies, the condors were fed rat meat by human hands masked by puppets at the San Diego Wild Animal Park and the Los Angeles Zoo.

The stillborn calves the condors are fed today are free from the poisonous lead shot that contributed to the species’ near extinction in the past.

Five years ago, the last California condor--Xewe’s mother--was captured from the wild, but the number of condors has continued to grow. Over the 10-year course of a captive breeding program at the Los Angeles Zoo and San Diego Wild Animal Park, the number of California condors rose from 27 to 52.

“This program has demonstrated that you can bring a species from the brink of extinction,” Mesta said.

With two female Andean condors as companions, the California condors lived first in a remote man-made cave that the biologists fondly referred to as “the condorminium.”

The netting that had enclosed the cave area was removed in January, and the birds slowly took flight. Although hesitant at first, the condors now spend much of their time in the sky, finding roosts where their ancestors once perched. One of these, on a natural rock arch with pools of water on top, is known as Hole in the Wall.

“They are taking some pretty long, soaring flights, leaving the sanctuary boundaries at times, so they’re doing really well,” Mesta said.

Mesta said he hopes breeding will follow its natural course as well.

“Once they reach breeding age--another five years--then their own instincts will tell them that anything, human or otherwise, will be a threat to successful breeding,” he said.

When the condors aren’t soaring, they spread their wings and turn their backs to the sun, Mesta said.

Once the condors are fully grown, their wings will span 9 1/2 to 10 feet.

“This is a glamorous species,” Ledig said. “It caught the public’s interest. They wanted to save the condor.”