Condor chick dies from ingested trash

I'll be honest: from my anthropomorphic point of view, California condors (Gymnogyps californianus) look a bit Freddie Krueger-esque. Bald head and neck, long, fuzzy chest feathers, and what a strange gaze. But being the wildlife lover that I am, I gotta admit that the condor’s survival story is hugely inspirational and exciting. There's much more conservation effort and funding directed to charismatic megafauna, regardless of ecological importance, and of course, I don’t think human biases against “ugly” looks should prevent us from taking a deeper look. The truth is condors play a critical role as scavengers – the largest such bird in the United States with a nine and a half foot wing span – and their success story shows how direct action can change the fate of a species for the better. Yet one pesky problem continues to plague the still endangered birds – trash. Biologists just found a dead condor chick in Big Sur on the central California coast last week, and it died from ingesting trash its mother fed it.

“The condor is one of the only species of animals that every individual of the population was brought into captivity and later re-released to the wild,” says Kelly Sorenson, Director of the Ventana Wildlife Society, which is involved in reintroduction efforts. “In 1987 there were only 27 birds alive in the world and they were all in captivity. Starting in 1992, offspring produced in zoos were released back into the wild.”

Condors once soared the skies throughout Western North America from Canada to Baja Mexico, but dramatically declined in the last century due to ingesting lead bullets, not to mention getting shot by people who didn't like their look. Due to reintroduction efforts, 180 condors now live, breed, feed and soar on thermals in the wild with around 50 in southern California and the rest in Arizona.

“Why are condor chicks ingesting trash? We really don’t know for sure,” says Sorenson, “but think it is connected to their need for calcium, and the parents confusing bone fragments for small pieces of trash. Somehow the parents know when the chicks need more bone fragments so their efforts increase at that critical time.”

I first heard of the trash pickup and the dead condor chick from a Facebook friend, Ali Barrett, who volunteered in the trash cleanup and posted an update and some photos of a soaring condor: “Highway 1 - litter clean up to stop baby condors from eating our crap and dying. Nice of the condors to show up to thank us personally.” Ventana Wildlife Society has stepped up trash cleanup efforts with two organized trash cleanup events last week. Ten chicks were born in the region, and all others have survived so far.

Go here to for some cool condor facts – for example, did you know condors don’t have talons like eagles and hawks but their nails are blunt like toenails? Or here for facts on specific condors in the wild such as Kingpin, Amigo and Tiny.