Number of California condors is soaring

January 5, 9:34 AMSanta Barbara Pet ExaminerKaren Lee Stevens

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Adult condor in flight. Chuck Graham, Noozhawk Photo

This just in:  Noozhawk, an online community news publication in Santa Barbara, reports that the 2008 California condor breeding season was the most successful yet for the birds’ recovery program.

“With seven new condors and two other chicks in Arizona and Baja successfully leaving their nests, the wild condor population now outnumbers those in captive breeding for the first time since reintroduction of the endangered birds began in 1992,” writes Chuck Graham, a Noozhawk contributor.

According to the January 5 article, there are now 167 condors flying free in the wild, with 160 in the captive breeding program at the Los Angeles Zoo and the San Diego Zoo.

While these numbers are impressive, condors still face threats from collisions with power lines, accidental (and intentional) shootings, and lead poisoning. A bill aimed at reducing lead poisoning—first proposed a year ago by Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, and signed into law in July by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger—has not yet eliminated the problem.

According to Graham’s article, condors are checked for lead levels after hunting season concludes in late fall. “Ingestion of lead has been the main culprit for condors, which doesn’t allow food stored in their crop (the pouch in their neck) to digest properly,” he writes. Mike Woodbridge, public relations officer for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Condor Recovery Program, states that several recently tested condors were found to have high levels of lead in their blood.

“We suspect lead was still being used because lead levels were still substantial within the condors tested,” Woodbridge told Noozhawk. “As people learn more about the law, it will become less and less of a problem for the condors.”