Condor Program Officials Fear Loss of Camp to Fire

Biologists will take to the air today to assess fire damage to a lookout post for the California Condor Recovery Program in Los Padres National Forest, east of San Luis Obispo.

The Castle Crags Base Camp, a plywood shed used by biologists in the condor recovery program, is outside the Machesna Wilderness Area in the 1.75-million-acre Los Padres National Forest, which encompasses land from Ventura County north to Monterey County.

U.S. Fish & Wildlife officials believe the camp was destroyed in the Highway 58 fire, a 70,000-acre blaze that began last Thursday and has brought firefighters from across the country.

The loss at the Castle Crags Base Camp could be as much as $25,000, said Jane Hendron, spokeswoman for the Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge, a condor-rearing facility in Fillmore.

“It is a significant blow to us,” Hendron said. “We are nearing the end of our fiscal year and will not be able to replace the supplies we have lost.”

The program dates back to 1987 when the last California condor was taken from the wild, said deputy project manager Marguerite Hills. The first condor was released into the wild in 1992 in the Sespe Condor Sanctuary, in eastern Ventura County.

The federal government provides about $400,000 for the program each year, with about $600,000 coming from private donors and institutions.

“With a 5% decrease in our federal budget each year for the last two years, I just don’t think we’ll be able to replace the camp without private donations,” Hills said.

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In addition to tools, an all-terrain vehicle, fire safety equipment and telescopes used for bird-watching, biologists fear they have lost about three weeks’ worth of field notes on the 17 condors involved in the recovery program. “Unfortunately we can’t get [the notes] back,” Hendron said.

Seventeen condors remain in the wild and can be found from Ventura County north through Kern County. The birds are only about 2 years old and have not begun nesting. That doesn’t happen until they are about 6, Hills said.

Biologists have accounted for all of the birds, Hills said. They have been found in the Lion Canyon area of the forest, between Cuyama and Santa Barbara in Santa Barbara County, about “40 miles as the condor soars” south of the Castle Crags Base Camp, according to Hills.

Biologists will watch the birds to ensure they stay out of danger, and there are no plans to move them at this point.

And if the condors fly north to the burned-out habitat, that’s not all bad, Hills said.

“In the near term, the habitat will be quite good for foraging. That’s when they fly around looking for food,” she said.