Condors Caught for Relocation to Safer Areas : Nature: Officials call moving the Sespe birds a “last resort” for the California Condor Project. Four have died in a streak of unlucky fatal incidents.

After a series of mishaps that killed half the California condors that had been released to the wild, biologists on Monday captured the four survivors in the Ventura County backcountry and prepared to move them to a more remote area.

Wildlife biologists shot a net over the four birds as they fed on carrion, high on a ridge in the Sespe Condor Sanctuary. The condors were carried to a nearby holding pen where they will await relocation on Nov. 17 to Lion Canyon in the rugged hills of northern Santa Barbara County.

The four condors had been bred in captivity and released in the sanctuary as part of a multiyear effort by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to save the California condor from extinction.

The same day that the captured Sespe condors are moved, five chicks hatched in captive breeding programs at the Los Angeles and San Diego zoos will be transported to the Lion Canyon site. The two groups of condors will be held in separate pens there until Dec. 8, to allow the birds to become acclimated to their new surroundings.

Biologists said they plan to release both groups of birds at the same time, although recovery team members are still discussing whether staggering the condors’ release would be better.

Officials called the relocation effort of the Sespe birds a “last resort” for the California Condor Project, which is charged with returning the giant vultures from the brink of extinction to a viable wild population.

The capture Monday was motivated by an unlucky streak that saw one bird die after drinking antifreeze and three others die after colliding with power lines or poles.

“Our biggest fear was that we might lose another bird to power lines before the new ones are released, and that has been allayed,” said Robert Mesta, coordinator for the condor recovery team. “It would be irresponsible for us not to move them knowing what we know now.”

A 50% mortality rate is not unusual and is even considered good in the wild, said Lloyd Kiff, the head biologist on the team when it oversaw capture of the last wild condor in 1987 and the release of the first zoo-bred birds in 1992.

Kiff, who is director of the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology in Camarillo, said he is optimistic that the program will succeed.

But Kiff said he will recommend that the four surviving Sespe condors not be released with the five young zoo-bred birds--or at least be released only one at a time--so the older condors would not show their bad habits to the new birds.

“One bird won’t take off to the old grounds, but if you put them all out at once, they might take off and head back to the Sespe,” he said.

There are now 75 living California condors, 71 in the zoos in Los Angeles and San Diego and a third breeding facility in Idaho.

The California condor, which once numbered in the thousands and roamed from Canada to Baja California, was near extinction in 1982, with only 22 or 23 birds alive.

The condor recovery team, with Kiff as the leader, decided that captive breeding was the only way to save the species. They chose the Sespe Condor Sanctuary area as the preferred release site because it had the greatest number of historic roosts.

The first four captive-bred condors were released into the wild in January, 1991.

Condor young learn from adults how to fly, forage, nest and avoid danger, and biologists were fearful from the beginning that the young birds would find power poles attractive roosts.

To reduce the hazards, Southern California Edison, Senneca Oil Co. and Santa Fe Energy spent $400,000 to bury power lines near the sanctuary area. Carrion was used in an attempt to lure the condors deeper into the wilderness, and noise was tried to scare birds out of hazardous areas.

But condors are curious and were attracted to the water at Lake Castaic; that brought them near dangerous man-made structures, Mesta said.