Two Intact Condor Eggs Found in Back Country

Two California condor eggs have been discovered in the back country of Santa Barbara County, the first intact eggs found in the wild since scientists began a captive-breeding program 15 years ago to save the giant birds from extinction.

Scientists had been watching three birds--a male and two females--who had been showing courtship behavior, but were unable to pinpoint the remote mountain canyon where they suspected the birds were nesting until snow recently melted.

“This is very cool,” said Greg Austin, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who discovered the eggs. “Years ago, critics said we couldn’t breed them in captivity, and now they’re breeding on their own.”

The two eggs are the second and third known to have been laid by California condors anywhere in the wild since 1986, when all nine remaining such condors in the world were taken into captivity.

In March, the first egg was found in a remote cave near the Grand Canyon, but that egg was cracked and would not hatch.

Austin monitored the Santa Barbara condors for two days last week. He said it appears that the two females are trading off incubating one egg and that the other egg will not be viable.

“This is really exciting, and very strange,” said Mike Wallace, wildlife scientist at the Center for Reproduction of Endangered Species in San Diego, “having the females chummy enough to share the same cave. These two females, R11 and R8, are acting like a bonded pair.”

Normally, he said, the two females would be canyons apart because condors are very territorial. But because there are only five sexually mature condors in the Santa Barbara area, they have broken up into a traditional male and female pair and a trio in which the other male has taken on the two female partners.

The traditional condor pair’s breeding appears to have been unsuccessful.

There is no guarantee that the egg will hatch, and biologists are concerned that because there are two eggs, the condors may try to incubate both and do neither successfully.

“If they stay on the one egg, if it’s developing properly, there’s a good chance it can hatch,” Wallace said.

The discovery comes at a good time for the condor restoration program, which has drawn some fire from scientists who say that too many birds are dying and that they are released too close to human populations.

Condor program biologists say this is a sign the bird is on its way to recovery, and is a strong step toward reproduction without human help.

“The condors are seeking out the most remote places to do those nestings. Instinctively, they know where to go,” said Mike Clark, condor keeper at the Los Angeles Zoo.

But, he said, biologists are prepared for a period of hits and misses because these condors have had no wild adults serving as models. Thus, he said, the unusual arrangement of the trio. And experts can’t be sure that what they have seen so far--the two females sharing one egg--is what will continue at this site.

“We’d expect it to be a little rocky in the beginning,” he said. “They’re such slow reproducers.”

Condors, the largest birds in North America, soar on 10-foot wingspans on air currents that propel them across mountain ranges at 55 mph. They are one of the world’s rarest and most endangered birds.

Biologists have spent about $25 million over the course of the recovery program, 60% of that in private funds, Wallace said.

As of April, there were 101 condors at three breeding locations: the Los Angeles Zoo, the San Diego Wild Animal Park and the World Center for Birds of Prey in Idaho. There are 51 in the wild, but next week six more will be released, from a site in the Ventura County back country north of Fillmore.