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Contemplating California Condors

10,000 Birds

The newest bird on the brink to capture her fertile imagination is the California Condor, on which she graciously shares her research and ruminations: Sometimes as a writer you recognize there’s been something overlooked in your midst—something quietly abiding. Condors, like all New World vultures, can disturb the human psyche.

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What is a “Nonessential Experimental” California Condor?

10,000 Birds

Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) recently proposed reintroducing California Condors in the Pacific Northwest. Although sometimes thought of a bird of the Southwest, the condor’s historical range reaches as far north as British Columbia. But condors have not been in the Pacific Northwest for more than a century.

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Bird Litigation: Hindsight and the California Condor

10,000 Birds

As many birders know, the last wild California Condors were captured by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in the 1980s to be part of a captive breeding program. Audubon thought there should be some wild condors to serve as “guide birds” for condors that would eventually be released from the captive breeding program.

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Feather Trails: A Journey of Discovery Among Endangered Birds–A Book Review

10,000 Birds

Osborn, a passionate field biologist who participates to the core of her being three re-introduction projects aimed at saving three very different, endangered species: Peregrine Falcon, Hawaiian Crow (‘Alala)*, and California Condor. As of 2024, the ‘Alala are extinct in the wild though they live on in captivity.

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I and the Bird: What is a Vulture?

10,000 Birds

The unrivaled aerial champions of the Americas have to be the two species of Condor, the one-time almost nearly extinct California Condor and the truly massive Andean Condor. The California Condor has a story well-known by anyone with an interest in birds. California Condor , photo by Sheridan Woodley.

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Hey, What About the Great Auk?

10,000 Birds

Then a little later there was a spot of bother with DDT, but we pulled out of that one ok, with a toolbox that would surely stand us in good stead if we only had the will to use it – legislation and literature, captive breeding programs, nest platforms. We could do it! Then the 80s happened. Or Bachman’s Warbler. Will it work?

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When is a Vulture Not a Vulture?

10,000 Birds

Alas, although I was once a California boy, I have never seen a California Condor. Zone-tailed Hawks breed in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, but they winter from Mexico to Brazil. Occasionally I have been lucky enough to see Lesser Yellow-headed Vultures in tropical Mexico.