Another Condor Killed in Power Line Accident : Wildlife: Of eight released in Ventura County, only four remain. Officials say they will step up efforts to move the birds to a more remote area.

The fourth of eight California condors released into the wild in Ventura County has died after colliding with a power line near Castaic Lake, prompting authorities to step up plans to move the remaining ones to a remoter area.

The 1 1/2-year-old male suffered a broken right wing, a brain hemorrhage and liver damage after it flew into transmission lines at the Castaic Lake Recreation Area. The condor carcass was found about noon Saturday.

It was the third condor death blamed on power lines in the past year. A fourth condor died last year in October after ingesting antifreeze that had been dumped on the ground.

Despite the high mortality rate for the eight birds released in the Ventura County condor sanctuary, wildlife officials and environmentalists say the risks are part of the program’s experimental nature.

Two of the condors were released in January, 1992, and six in December, 1992. There are 71 condors remaining in captivity.

“It’s a long-term effort and we’re only at the very initial stage of this program,” said Marc Weitzel, director of the California Condor Recovery Program. “Mortality is a factor we’re going to have to deal with in the future. It’s a part of the wild population and it’s going to be part of this program.”

Weitzel said the condors released near Fillmore have shown a stubborn tendency to leave the protected Sespe Condor Sanctuary and fly into more populated areas.

“We do tend to think that condors go through a curiosity phase where they home in on things,” he said. “Exactly how long this phase lasts, we’re not sure.”

With the discovery of the latest death, program officials on Monday hastened plans to move the remaining condors to Santa Barbara County. Beginning next week, field biologists will try to lure the birds to an open area and trap them under a net.

Officials began trying to lure the condors north in June after a 1-year-old female condor died after colliding with a power line along California 126 near Fillmore. Because trapping the birds may injure them, other tactics were tried first, Weitzel said.

But the methods used to lure the condors northwest to Santa Barbara County--triangular kites, a helium balloon and a blimp painted with a red bull’s eye-- failed to attract the birds’ attention.

“They would fly out there, but they just didn’t pay a lot of attention to them,” Weitzel said.

Calf carcasses placed northwest of the Sespe sanctuary drew the birds into the more remote area only temporarily.

In recent weeks, wildlife biologists had frequently spotted two of the condors, and sometimes more, near Lake Castaic. They tried unsuccessfully to scare the birds away from the recreation areas by making loud noises or shooting wads of paper at the birds with slingshots.

On Friday morning, two birds were settled on a perch near the the lake for more than three hours and were still in the vicinity at 5 p.m. But at 7:30 a.m. Saturday morning, only one bird was visible and biologists could not pick up the radio signal from a device attached to the other bird.

Wildlife officials searched the area from the Sespe Condor Sanctuary to the lake and found the bird about noon on the ground near the Castaic Lake dam.

Weitzel said power lines are particularly hazardous to the condors.

Once the four remaining condors are caught, they will be driven to a new condor releasing facility at Lion Canyon, which borders the San Rafael Wilderness in Santa Barbara County.

Five condors born this year at the San Diego Wild Animal Park and at the Los Angeles Zoo also will be taken to that site later this month. They will be released after spending about three weeks in a net and plywood pen.

If the four condors already released in Ventura County continue to roam from the wilderness area, they may be returned to captivity and used for breeding.