Condor Release Near Grand Canyon Lags

Plans to release California condors in the Grand Canyon region probably will be delayed until December, a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service official said Monday.

The agency was going to release nine of the endangered birds in southern Utah this summer as part of a project to reintroduce condors to territory they haven’t roamed since the Pleistocene era. But a combination of factors has held up the project.

Objections by residents of southern Utah and northern Arizona slowed the release initially, but project coordinator Jeff Humphrey said public opinion has swung back in favor of the condors. There were also objections and legal technicalities over a provision of the release that would deem the population nonessential to the perpetuation of the species, he said. Some feared the birds wouldn’t be protected enough if they were considered nonessential.

While these issues have been under debate, the nine birds slated for the release are more than a year old and are ready to be released, Humphrey said. Rather than moving them to the Grand Canyon region during the August heat, the agency decided to take them to one of the agency’s Los Padres National Forest locations or to Big Sur to be reintroduced to the wild as soon as possible.

Six other birds born this spring will be moved to Utah when they are ready to leave the nest, Humphrey said. Although they’ll be kept in a pen until the December release, the agency hopes that by starting them out in the Utah area, they will consider that to be home, giving the reintroduction program a better chance to succeed.

“Their first glimpses of the outside world would be at Vermilion Cliffs,” he said, referring to the release site.