This is a chapter from my book, “Condor Tales: What I Learned in Twelve Years with the Big Birds (Symbios 2016), covering the beginnings of our fight to begin a condor captive propagation program.
I had been trying to sell a trapping and marking program for condors, but it became clear that nothing important to the condors’ survival would result from it. With the marking proposal tabled, the time appeared right - actually, I felt it was now or never - to begin a captive breeding program. Not since 1953 had anyone seriously proposed that California condors be taken into captivity. The reaction to the San Diego Zoo’s proposal to breed condors in captivity had been passage of one of the most restrictive wildlife laws ever enacted, anywhere. The wording, from Section 119.5 of the California Fish and Game Code, is worth repeating here. It clearly shows why attempting to change the status quo was not a job for the faint-hearted.
“It is unlawful to take any condor at any time or in any manner. No provision of this code or any other law shall be construed to authorize the issuance of a permit to take any condor and no permit heretofore issued shall have any force or effect for any purpose after January 15, 1954” (my underlining).
I don’t know how I had ever entertained the idea that getting permission to trap condors could be accomplished quickly. The situation had changed since the 1950s, certainly, and we were convincing a lot of people that the condor population was in dire straits. But some of the chief opponents of captive propagation in 1953 were still around in 1975 (including Carl Koford and the McMillan brothers), they had new recruits, and there were still two very different schools of thought about how much manipulation should be done in order to save an endangered species. Carl’s famous pronouncement that a condor in a cage wasn’t really a condor at all, was linked with an unfortunate new slogan (courtesy of the U. S. Postal Service, who issued a condor commemorative stamp to “help” us!): “Let them live. Leave them alone.”
As philosophical statements, some of the words spoken in opposition to captive breeding were eloquent. But there were eloquent advocates for hands-on management, as well. As Roland Clement wrote to me in June 1976: “I’m not trying to put off the condor’s destiny, since that is arrogant and impossible. But we have, as the dominant American civilization, insulted this bird’s populations so hard that we owe it a last-ditch effort to overcome debilities we have unwittingly and/or arrogantly imposed over the last century or more.”
We might ultimately get all the approvals to capture condors, but it was not going to be quick or easy.
From October 1975 to May 1976, I worked to prepare a revision of the Condor Recovery Plan, with a supplement to address captive propagation. The draft plan was sent to all Recovery Team and Condor Advisory Committee members on 3 May 1976, and was the main subject of discussion at a 20 May 1976 Condor Advisory Committee meeting in San Francisco. The new proposal was as follows:
“Beginning as soon as necessary State and Federal permits are received, a dependable sexing technique has been developed, and at least temporary holding facilities are available, capture 3 California condors. With the condor presently in captivity at the Los Angeles Zoo, two pairs could potentially be formed. After one year, barring unforeseen problems for either the wild or captive populations, two additional pairs would be captured. The condors would be held in facilities designed to promote breeding. Eggs laid would be taken from the parent birds and artificially incubated, or chicks would be removed from parental care and fledged apart from the parents, thereby stimulating the adults to nest more often than they would be expected to in the wild. As captive reared birds become available, they would be taken to suitable release sites that are isolated and well supplied with food. Ideally, released birds would pair, adopt territories in the release area, and eventually breed.”
I went on to describe the various options for trapping and handling, and also discussed the probability of success.
“The California condor population appears in critical condition right now. Techniques for propagation of vultures have not been refined, and no attempts have so far been made to establish a comparable species in the wild. Physically obtaining progeny for release will take time. Considering that time is the real enemy currently, even a successful program (in terms of establishing some captive reared condors in the wild) may come too late for sustaining the species.
“On the positive side, California condors adapt well to captivity. Some (mainly birds taken as nestlings) have died within the first year of captivity, but others have lived for considerable periods. Koford knew of 6 condors that had lived 10 or more years in captivity, their maximum ages being 10, 10, 12, 36, ‘about 40,’ and 45 years. The California condor currently held at the Los Angeles Zoo has been there 9 years.
“California condors have laid eggs in captivity, two females in the National Zoological Park producing more than one dozen eggs between them. No male was present, so none of the eggs were fertile.
“The Andean condor, recognized by most authorities as a close relative of the California condor, also adapts well to captivity and has bred and produced young on a number of occasions, dating back at least to 1847. Most notable in the captive breeding of this species is the success of the San Diego Zoo in obtaining from one pair 9 young in 11 years. This was accomplished by taking eggs and young from the parents, permitting the parents to begin another breeding cycle much sooner than wild birds could have done. Eleven-year production in the wild would have only been about 5 young maximum.
“Griffon vultures, an Old World species similar to the North American condors in size and overall breeding characteristics, have also bred and reared young in captivity.
“Regarding release to the wild, California condors should be easier to establish than some other species because they do not need to learn to kill live prey. Their dependence on carrion makes it easy to provide adequate food in desired locations while the birds are becoming accustomed to their free existence. Releasing birds in the Coast Range Mountains, rather than in the main condor population areas, frees the birds from competing for food or nesting territory within the existing social hierarchy. Social stimulation from other condors is not a prerequisite for successful breeding.
“Barring unforeseen problems within the population that make many condors physically unable to breed, it seems likely that California condors taken into captivity will survive long enough to produce more young than a comparable wild pair. Subsequent reestablishment of condors also appears more likely than for some other species.”
Another feature of the new contingency plan was a proposal to create artificial nesting cliffs and caves in the Tehachapi Mountains. Looking back, I can’t believe I advocated this. It seems ludicrous, now. (Dean Carrier didn’t like it, either. He sent me a photo of the Tejon Ranch, on which he had sketched a line of gigantic bluebird houses along the steep hillside.) The plan surfaced because condors seemed to be spending more and more time around the good food supplies on the Tejon Ranch, and less and less time in the Sespe Condor Sanctuary. The Tejon had everything condors needed except nest sites, so perhaps we could increase reproductive activity if we provided the missing element. I think we put the artificial cliffs in the plan so we couldn’t be accused of not “covering all the bases.” It’s very doubtful that the Tejon Ranch Company would have allowed us to construct the nest sites on the ranch, particularly in light of their own later plans for the area. In any event, nesting cliffs never became more than a concept on paper.
(Actually, there was quite a bit of support for this idea, mainly from people who did not want us to trap any condors. They suggested that we should give the nest cliffs a good long try. Then, if some day - far in the future! - we could show that the new sites hadn’t worked, we could bring up the captive breeding proposal, again.)
The May 1976 Advisory Committee meeting was a good one. I led the discussion of the new contingency plan, then Jerry Verner gave his mathematical assessment of the condor population. Jerry had been an ecology professor at Illinois State University before joining the Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station in early 1976. His first assignment had been to take all the information available on condor population dynamics, and use the latest mathematics and statistics on it. His study has been criticized because all he did was take the figures I gave him, and subjected them to new tests and interpretations. Nevertheless, it was a fresh look at the data, and his conclusion that - if anything - my negative feelings were perhaps not negative enough definitely helped to move the discussion along. (He felt that stabilizing the condor population would probably take annual production of six young, rather than the four I had estimated.)
The Advisory Committee did not endorse the contingency plan at the meeting, but all the members promised to send me their individual comments. In the next couple weeks, I received letters from all but the Department of Fish and Game. All but Starker Leopold were supportive of the plan, although not all wildly so. Bob Harris, Jerry Verner’s boss: “We endorse the plan and believe it represents a realistic approach toward condor recovery.” Roland Clement, for National Audubon: “This document is almost ready for the public.” Bob Orr, California Academy of Sciences: “The decline in condor numbers and especially in reproduction seems to necessitate a drastic attempt to save the species from complete extinction. We do not know that condors will breed in captivity, but we must find out.” Doug Leitz, Regional Forester: “We realize that there are still many unanswered questions related to Condor reproduction and that captive breeding represents a ‘last ditch’ effort. If we wait very much longer for these questions to be answered, it may be too late. After careful analysis of recent reproductive success in the wild, we can only conclude that mother nature may need some help.”
Starker’s concerns were the same ones he kept throughout the contingency planning process: “I am not automatically or congenitally opposed to artificial propagation. I just cannot see at the moment how this step can be expected to overcome the sexual reticence of the condors on the wing... There is abundant evidence that the wild-living condor population is not reproducing adequately. Presumably, artificial propagation would purport to overcome the reproductive problems being experienced by the wild condors. But what are these problems? And how might they be overcome in captivity?”
Most of Starker’s comments, both at the Advisory Committee meeting and in his letter to me, I considered thoughtful and constructive. Some seemed unanswerable, and I felt that taking more time to try and answer them would have further reduced the chances that a captive breeding program would be successful. I did see that, if after all our discussions he was still not clear on the potential benefits of captive breeding, we needed to be sure we had some very clear answers ready when the proposal “went public.”
After some minor revisions, the Recovery Team officially sent our Contingency Plan to the Regional Director of Fish and Wildlife Service on 1 July 1976. While it was undergoing further review by that office and by California Department of Fish and Game, I was trying to strengthen our case for captive breeding by making sure we had answers for all the logical questions that might be asked. I came up with the following list, with accompanying answers.
(1) Is the population in such bad shape that we really need to consider such drastic action? Yes. Here I referred to the results of our various census results , and to my and Jerry Verner’s population models.
(2) Have we really exhausted all other possibilities? Yes. We could cite all the tasks outlined in the Recovery Plan, most of which were either done or in progress. There were certainly things we didn’t know about the species, but there seemed to be no way to gather more pertinent information in time to help the condors.
(3) Why can’t the condors increase on their own, like they did in the past? We don’t think that condors have increased on their own in recent times, unless it was during the livestock boom of the early 1800s, when carrion was super-abundant. Although there have been various population estimates published, none has any credibility before Koford’s study. Since then, we think the condor population has been on a slow but steady decline. Condors do not have the reproductive capability to make major changes in their numbers.
(4) Won’t taking condors into captivity jeopardize the remaining wild population? It might, but numbers are currently not as important as reproduction. It looks like most of the production in the population is being done by just a few condors. We would plan our capture to take those birds least likely to be contributing to the annual production. We would also take a relatively small number of birds into captivity initially, enough to assure a reasonable start to the captive program but not so many that we’d make a major change in the wild population size.
(5) Why not take just a pair or two into captivity, which would have less impact on the remaining wild population? We’re not necessarily going to get a viable pair every time we put a male and a female together. We probably will need to switch the birds around before we get optimum breeding. Although we feel we can increase individual productivity in captivity, time is marching on. We need enough birds breeding to turn out a regular supply of young relatively quickly.
(6) What if condors are killed or injured during trapping? It’s quite possible that there could be accidents during trapping and handling. We will use the safest traps, have the most experienced trappers, and have veterinarians on hand while the condors are handled. The loss of a bird should not be considered a failure, if the end result is a viable breeding program.
(7) How are you going to form pairs if you can’t tell the sex of the condors? Actually, we do have a viable technique now, involving identifying the sex chromosomes in feather pulp. We need a faster technique for use in the field, and are currently researching several possibilities. Trapping would not occur until we have a suitable field technique.
(8) Since condors are not breeding in adequate numbers in the wild, what makes you think they will breed in captivity? We don’t think that the wild condors are incapable of breeding. We think the problems are more related to food and nest sites, and maybe the low likelihood of the few eligible condors meeting and forming new pairs. If those are the problems, we should be able to manage them in a controlled environment.
(9) What can be accomplished in captivity that can’t be accomplished in the wild? If the condors form pairs and breed, we should be able to increase their individual productivity greatly over the best that could be expected in the wild. By removing eggs or young from the parents, we should be able to get the birds to lay another egg the same year, or at least one every year. In the wild, the most we expect is one young every two years. Also, we expect to be forming pairs that are not currently active in the wild, and may not reproduce on their own.
(10) Even if condors breed in zoos, what are the chances of getting them back into the wild? We don’t know, but (as I noted above) scavengers may be easier to get established in the wild than some other species. We will have a number of years to experiment with Andean condors before we have California condors to release.
With the expected slowness of the bureaucracy, it was 17 November 1976 before the Regional Office finally sent the Contingency Plan on to the Director. The Department of Fish and Game had still not responded officially. Time was slipping by for the condors, but we were making the best use of the delay by perfecting our plans, and by taking our proposal to the public for their reaction.
To the Writing It Down Homepage