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Sometimes
it’s the simplest things that can bring about the most
remarkable changes. Bruce
Palmer, head of the Condor Reintroduction Program, reminded us
of that on a recent field trip he and his wife led to the
Grand Canyon.
We
had remarkably few other species at the canyon--twelve,
counting the condors.
But we sure did get great views of that majestic king
of the canyon.
The cove off the backyard of Bright Angel Lodge is a
favorite choice for condors roosting for the night.
We were there at 4:30 PM as the first young condor
straggler arrived and perched on a rock ledge cantilevered in
space below Lookout Studio.
Within a half hour a great kettle, a gathering, of
ravens, turkey vultures and condors arrived.
Seeing all these black-feathered canyon residents
together emphasized the size of the condors.
The giants of the air came gliding with feet extended
to slow their descent, flexing flight feathers to direct their
course.
They were so close we could see their feathers
quivering in the winds they rode, straining to support the
twenty pound weight of the bird.
The
condors’ pink-orange crops showed they had been feeding,
probably on a big-horned sheep carcass rangers had spotted
them on earlier.
Bruce explained that food is still provided by the
Reintroduction Program, still-born calves, as a general rule.
It is food the condor caretakers know is not
contaminated with lead from hunter’s bullets.
The lead shot ammunition is ingested by the condors as
they feed and remains in their system long enough to poison
them.
Condors are good at what they do.
What they do is locate and consume dead animal matter,
primarily large game, the same game hunters are hunting.
There is no way the researchers can keep the condors
from eating carcasses felled by hunters.
Every
six months each one of the free-flying condors in Arizona and
California’s release programs has to be recaught and
retested for lead.
Those highly enough contaminated have to be chelated
through a series of injections which the condors hate.
It hurts.
It hurts the scientists too: one had his chin split
open by a thrashing condor beak and another broke his tooth
while trying to manhandle a condor who chose noncompliance.
Bruce explained that the birds, with a wing-span of
nine feet, are an amazing combination of strength and
fragility.
They are powerfully muscled, but their bones are
air-filled, as all bird bones are, so they are brittle and
easily broken if not handled very carefully.
A condor on the run from the needle is apt to be making
any kind of handling as difficult as it can.
“Condor
reintroduction can never be successful as long as hunters
still use lead shot ammunition,” Bruce stated.
Fortunately most ammunition producers are willing to
consider making non-lead alternatives available when they are
aware of the problem..
Negotiations are ongoing.
It’s simple, and absolutely vital to condor survival
in nature.
Last
year three condors were hatched in the wild.
Condors are nest-bound for the first six months of
life.
Then, at six months, they fledge.
Flight training begins.
The fledglings will remain with their parents another
six months, just learning the ropes of flying and condor
acculturation.
While
nestlings, their parents bring them food daily.
Instinctively, the parent condors also bring bits and
pieces of material scattered around the carcass at the feeding
site.
Normally, this is comprised of bits of bone from the
carcass.
This too is fed to the young condors, providing
minerals for their developing bones.
Unfortunately, adult condors pick up other small items
as well, like broken glass and bottle tops.
The bottle tops are made of zinc.
All three of last year’s nestlings died between five
and six months of age.
Necropsies showed one had twelve bottle caps in its
stomach and intestines and they all died of zinc toxicity.
This year there was one condor hatched in Arizona.
The Reintroduction Program has attempted to clean up
the cliffs below the nest site and at the feeding sites to try
to keep trash from being delivered to the chick by its
instinct-driven parents.
Time will tell how successful they’ve been.
The chick is only a few months old now and it’s still
too early to know.
But people have been coming to the canyon for a hundred
years.
A hundred years of trash.
“The moral of that story?” asked Chris Palmer.
“Pick up your trash. Today’s and yesterday’s,
when you come across it.
But at least start with your own, today.”
It’s
the simple things that will ensure that condors sail free in
blue skies over our children and our children’s children.
None of us needs to be many-degreed scientists to stop
using lead shot ammunition and pick up our trash and the trash
of others.
It’s
a start toward assisting the condor in its reintroduction, a
start we can all make--simple as that.
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