A sad Mother's Day annoucement

The mother of 38 chicks has passed away
http://www.oregonlive.com/today/index.s ... l#comments

Sad, and reminiscent for me.  

A story of:

>extinction in the wild,

>a bold decision to capture the remaining 20 or so birds as they approached extinction and work to breed them in captivity.  
>carefully imprinting the chicks, through the use of hand puppets designed to look like the adult head when feeding the chicks.

>then re-introduction to the wild !!!!

Below is an interesting excerpt from this wiki link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_condor

In an article titled: "Condors or lead ammunition? We can't have both" published by The Ecologist in January 2015, author Dawn Starin states: "Over 60% of the adult and juvenile deaths (that is, excluding chicks and fledglings) in the wild population have been as a result of lead poisoning."[5] She continues: "Because condors have been known to live past the age of 50, do not breed until they are at least six years old, and raise only one chick every other year, their populations cannot withstand the mortality rates caused by this neurological toxin."[5] According to epidemiologist Terra Kelly: "Until all natural food sources are free from lead-based ammunition, lead poisoning will threaten recovery of naturally sustaining populations of condors in the wild."[5] The article also states: "The military doesn't use lead, and if that isn't a huge message I don't know what is."[5]

That bolded sentence puts the species in a exclusive group, most sensitive to extinction. 


Good one Mike.  She is a great loss to a project that resulted in a great success story in wildlife conservation.  Thanks for this.

"The military doesn't use lead, and if that isn't a huge message I don't know what is."[5] As far as I know the military still uses lead with a full metal jacket of copper. Two of the largest sites for raising chicks are in the NW, but release into the wild is problematic due to lead poisoning. I went to college in Santa Barbara and can remember seeing the birds on dead seals (this is dating me, in the 60s).