S.D.-Raised Condors to Fly Venezuelan Sky

When raising Andean condors, the trick is not to let them see you.

Bird keepers at the San Diego Wild Animal Park have done their best to stay out of the sight of two young condors that are bound for release into the wilds of their historical habitat in Venezuela.

The San Diego-hatched Andeans, 1 1/2-year-old male and female birds, will be among five condors raised in captivity that will be released in Venezuela’s Andean mountains. The last confirmed sighting of a wild Andean condor in Venezuela was in 1912.

The condors were sent to Venezuela Thursday through an agreement between the Venezuelan national park service, Inparques, and zoos in San Diego, Los Angeles and Dallas.

The birds left Los Angeles International Airport for Merida, Venezuela, where they will be trucked to the Sierra de la Culata mountains, about 300 miles west of Caracas. The condors will spend two to eight weeks in outdoor pens before being released.

The attempt to integrate the zoo-hatched birds into their natural habitat is a first for Venezuela, but has been done successfully in Colombia since 1989. Twenty-six zoo-hatched condors have been released in Colombia, where the majority of the condors are found naturally. Twenty-three of those have survived.

Although 200 condors exist in captivity in North and South America, and several thousand exist in the South American wild, they have been listed as an endangered species in the United States since 1989 because of a rapid decline in the population during the last decade.

By comparison, the California condor, the closest relative to the Andean and also an endangered species, numbers just 63.

Although there is a wide gap in numbers, the two species face about the same degree of endangerment, said Alan Lieberman, a curator at the San Diego Zoo.

Because of the intense scrutiny given to the survival of the California condor, the population is likely to increase, Lieberman said. The Andean condor numbers are likely to continue dwindling because of the lack of governmental protection for endangered species in South America and the misconception by Andean villagers that the condors are predators of livestock. Scientists and federal wildlife officials have called for stricter enforcement of the protective laws in North and South America.

The Andean condor is the world’s largest flying bird, standing more than 4-feet tall at adulthood, with a wingspan of about 11 feet. The birds shipped out Thursday are close to full-size, weighing about 20 pounds with a wingspan of about 10 feet, said Tom Hanscom, spokesman for the Wild Animal Park. The birds reach full maturity at about six years.

To preserve their natural fear of humans and increase their chances of their survival in the wild, it is safer for the birds if they do not become comfortable with their keepers, said Deborah Jones, the Park’s senior condor keeper. The birds were all raised with minimal exposure to humans, Jones said.

Scientists will monitor the flight and nesting habits of the five condors with tiny solar-powered radio transmitters that will be attached to the birds’ wings. The monitoring devices are being used with condors already released in Colombia, Hanscom said.