12 Condors Arrive at Facility in Idaho

Twelve California condors from the Los Angeles and San Diego zoos took flight in a pair of jet airplanes Thursday, arriving safely at their new Idaho roost that biologists hope will become the third captive breeding facility.

The planes, carrying seven of the endangered birds from the San Diego Wild Animal Park and five from the Los Angeles Zoo, arrived in Boise, Idaho, said Jeff Cilek, program executive at the Peregrine Fund that operates the World Center for Birds of Prey.

“They all survived the trip extremely well,” Cilek said. “They hopped right out of their kennels (and into new chambers) like nothing had happened.”

The World Center, which helped revive the peregrine falcon from near extinction, has built an $800,000 facility to become the first out-of-state breeding program for the California condor.

Although the offspring of the six pairs may one day be released in Ventura or Santa Barbara counties, it is more likely they will be set free in the Grand Canyon area, biologists said.

The first pair is not expected to produce young before 1995 or 1996, biologists said.

Each of the Boise birds will share a chamber that is 40 feet long, 20 feet wide and 20 feet high. The rooms, with rock floors, tree stumps and wooden perches and walls, also include outdoor areas enclosed with chain-link fencing.

The rooms do not simulate nature as did the cave-like structures built in the Sespe Condor Sanctuary in Ventura County for birds awaiting release into the wild. The World Center birds are captive breeding pairs and will never be released into the wild, biologists said.

The California condor once numbered in the thousands, but loss of habitat, shooting and lead poising from feeding on wounded carrion diminished its numbers until they reached 22 or 23 in 1982.

Only 76 of the giant vultures, including five in the Ventura County back country, survive.