12 California Condors to Get New Home in Idaho

Twelve California condors from captive breeding programs in Los Angeles and San Diego will be moved next week to a new facility in Idaho, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service officials in Ventura County announced Friday.

The move will mark the first time in the 12-year history of the Condor Recovery Program that the endangered birds have been bred outside California, said Robert Mesta, who coordinates the Ventura-based program.

Ventura County, the home of the only five California condors living in the wild, could eventually receive some of the young from the Boise facility, Mesta said. But it is more likely those animals will be released in Arizona and New Mexico.

The two existing breeding facilities at the San Diego and Los Angeles zoos are now at capacity with 71 birds between the two.

Those two locations have produced the five California condors that now roost in Ventura County, as well as the five that will be transferred to a remote portion of Santa Barbara County in November for release into the wild in December.

Transferring the birds from the two Southern California zoos to the newly constructed facility at the World Center for Bids of Prey in Boise, Idaho, will help expand the limited gene pool and help ensure the survival of the species into the next century, Mesta said.

“There will be a time in the near future when we will have birds in captivity eligible for release into the wild in Ventura or Santa Barbara counties,” Mesta said. “But their family lines will be already represented out there.

“This new facility helps protect the genetic diversity of the population by getting them into another facility and allowing us to release them in another part of the country.”

Like the programs at Los Angeles and San Diego, the breeding program in Boise will be under the supervision of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Mesta said.

On Thursday, seven of the condors will leave the San Diego Wild Animal Park for Miramar Naval Air Station and board a U.S. Air Force aircraft for their flight north.

The same day, five birds from the Los Angeles Zoo will be taken to the Los Angeles International Airport where they will board a Boeing 747 provided by Federal Express. The jet has been specially equipped with ventilation and seats for the veterinarians who will accompany the birds.

The 12 birds, six males and six females ranging in age from 2 to 10 years, were chosen for their genetic makeup to become six breeding pairs at the new facility in Boise.

The first pair is not expected to produce young before 1995 or 1996, said Jeff Cilek, program executive at the Peregrine Fund, which operates the World Center for Birds of Prey.

Cilek said the the condors, for which the center built a separate $800,000 facility, will add to the already 200 endangered birds housed and bred at the center.

The condor, which once numbered in the thousands and roamed from Canada to Baja California, was on the brink of extinction in 1982 and 1983, hitting an all time low of 22 or 23 birds.

Scientists decided a captive breeding program was the only way to save the species and captured the last wild bird in 1987.

Since then, the successful breeding programs allowed for the release of eight condor chicks in the rugged back country of Ventura County. But three have died during the last year; one died last October after eating anti-freeze and two others died in May and June after flying into power lines or poles near the Fillmore area, Mesta said.

Scientists plan to gradually lure the five remaining birds in the wild north toward the Santa Barbara County site in the San Rafael Wilderness where the new chicks will be released in December.

“Hopefully, they won’t be out in the areas where they can get into trouble,” Mesta said. “If they behave, we’ve done our jobs.”