Young Condor Killed by Power Line
A young California condor has died after slamming into a power line north of Santa Barbara, the fifth to have a fatal encounter with civilization since the program to reintroduce the endangered birds to the wild began in 1992, federal officials said Monday.
The 14-month-old male, known only as No. 89, and another young male condor had flown 25 miles from the remote Santa Barbara canyon where they were released in December.
The two were spotted Friday morning sitting on a fence next to a back-yard swimming pool on El Camino Cielo near California 154, said Marc M. Weitzel, the Ventura-based project leader for the Condor Recovery Program.
Biologists were attempting to flush the birds away from the populated region Friday when No. 89 took flight, glided about three-quarters of a mile and struck the power line, Weitzel said. But he said the death was not a direct result of the effort to scare the birds away.
Weitzel said the death will not change plans to release six to 10 more young condors into the Lion Canyon area.
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