California condor

The California condor (Gymnogyps californianus) is a New World vulture and the largest North American land bird. It became extinct in the wild in 1987 when all remaining wild individuals were captured, but has since been reintroduced to northern Arizona and southern Utah (including the Grand Canyon area and Zion National Park), the coastal mountains of California, and northern Baja California in Mexico. It is the only surviving member of the genus Gymnogyps, although four extinct members of the genus are also known. The species is listed by IUCN as critically endangered, and similarly considered Critically Imperiled by NatureServe. The plumage is black with patches of white on the undersi...

The California condor lives in rocky shrubland, coniferous forest, and oak savanna. They are often found near cliffs or large trees, which they use as nesting sites. Individual birds have a huge range and have been known to travel up to 250 km (160 mi) in search of carrion. There are two sanctuaries chosen because of their prime condor nesting habitat: the Sisquoc Condor Sanctuary in the San Rafael Wilderness and the Sespe Condor Sanctuary in the Los Padres National Forest. The Los Padres Condor Range and River Protection Act of 1992 expanded existing wilderness by 34,200 hectares (84,400 acres) and designated 127,900 hectares (316,050 acres) of new wilderness that provide habitat for the condor in the Los Padres.

United States

Wild condors maintain a large home range, often traveling 250 km (160 mi) a day in search of carrion. It is thought that in the early days of its existence as a species, the California condor lived off the carcasses of the Pleistocene megafauna, which are largely extinct in North America. They still prefer to feast on large, terrestrial mammalian carcasses such as deer, goats, sheep, donkeys, horses, pigs, cougars, bears, or cattle. Alternatively, they may feed on the bodies of smaller mammals such as rabbits, squirrels, and coyotes, aquatic mammals such as whales and California sea lions, or salmon. Bird and reptile carcasses are rarely eaten. Condors prefer fresh kills, but they also eat decayed food when necessary. Since they do not have a sense of smell, they spot these corpses by looking for other scavengers, like eagles and smaller vultures, the latter of which cannot rip through the tougher hides of these larger animals with the efficiency of the larger condor. They can usually intimidate other scavengers away from the carcass, with the exception of bears, which will ignore them, and golden eagles, which will fight a condor over a kill or a carcass. In the wild they are intermittent eaters, often going for between a few days to two weeks without eating, then gorging themselves on 1–1.5 kilograms (2.2–3.3 lb) of meat at once.

The California condor's large flight muscles are not anchored by a correspondingly large sternum, which restricts them to being primarily soarers. The birds flap their wings when taking off from the ground, but after attaining a moderate elevation they largely glide, sometimes going for miles without a single flap of their wings. They have been known to fly up to speeds of 90 km/h (56 mph) and as high as 4,600 m (15,100 ft). They prefer to roost on high perches from which they can launch without any major wing-flapping effort. Often, these birds are seen soaring near rock cliffs, using thermals to aid them in keeping aloft. The California condor has a long life span, reaching up to 60 years. If it survives to adulthood, the condor has few natural threats other than humans. Because they lack a syrinx, their vocal display is limited to grunts and hisses. Condors bathe frequently and can spend hours a day preening their feathers. Condors also perform urohidrosis, or defecate on their legs, to reduce their body temperature. There is a well-developed social structure within large groups of condors, with competition to determine a pecking order decided by body language, competitive play behavior, and a variety of hisses and grunts. This social hierarchy is displayed especially when the birds feed, with the dominant birds eating before the younger ones.

Condors begin to look for a mate when they reach sexual maturity at the age of 6. To attract a prospective mate, the male condor performs a display, in which the male turns his head red and puffs out his neck feathers. He then spreads his wings and slowly approaches the female. If the female lowers her head to accept the male, the condors become mates for life. The pair makes a simple nest in caves or on cliff clefts, especially ones with nearby roosting trees and open spaces for landing. A mated female lays one bluish-white egg every other year. Eggs are laid as early as January to as late as April. The egg weighs about 280 grams (10 oz) and measures from 90 to 120 mm (3.5 to 4.7 in) in length and about 67 mm (2.6 in) in width. If the chick or egg is lost or removed, the parents "double clutch", or lay another egg to take the lost one's place. Researchers and breeders take advantage of this behavior to double the reproductive rate by taking the first egg away for puppet-rearing; this induces the parents to lay a second (or even third) egg, which the condors are sometimes allowed to raise. The eggs hatch after 53 to 60 days of incubation by both parents. Chicks are born with their eyes open and sometimes can take up to a week to leave the shell completely. The young are covered with a grayish down until they are almost as large as their parents. They are able to fly after 5 to 6 months, but continue to roost and forage with their parents until they are in their second year, at which point the parents typically turn their energies to a new nest. Ravens are the main predatory threat to condor eggs, while golden eagles and bears are potential predators of condor offspring. In 2021, the San Diego Zoo reported having had two unfertilized eggs hatch within its breeding program in 2001 and 2009, producing male young by parthenogenesis as indicated by genetic studies. The mothers had been housed with males and had mated before, but the offspring lacked markers of male paternity and showed all-maternal inheritance, suggesting the specific mechanism of parthenogenesis involved automixis, gametic fusion, or endomitosis. Earlier evidence of similar parthenogenesis in birds found that among the known examples the embryos died before hatching, unlike these condor chicks. Neither chick lived to sexual maturity, preventing data collection on their reproductive potential. In July 2024, the LA Zoo reported that a record-setting 17 California condor chicks hatched during the year's breeding season, crediting the surge on novel breeding and rearing techniques developed by their condor team. The technique involves introducing 2 to 3 chicks to a single surrogate mature condor who raises them. Due to the endangered status of the California condor, all 17 chicks are to be released into the wild.

The California condor was described by English naturalist George Shaw in 1797 as Vultur californianus; Archibald Menzies collected the type specimen "from the coast of California" during the Vancouver Expedition. It was originally classified in the same genus as the Andean condor (V. gryphus), but, due to the Andean condor's slightly different markings, slightly longer wings, and tendency to kill small animals to eat, the California condor has been placed in its own monotypic genus. The generic name Gymnogyps is derived from the Greek gymnos/γυμνος "naked" or "bare", and gyps/γυψ "vulture", while the specific name californianus comes from its location in California. The word condor itself is derived from the Quechua word kuntur. The exact taxonomic placement of the California condor and the other six species of New World vultures remains unclear. Though similar in appearance and ecological roles to Old World vultures, the New World vultures evolved from a different ancestor in a different part of the world. Just how different the two are is under debate, with some earlier authorities suggesting that the New World vultures are more closely related to storks. More recent authorities maintain their overall position in the order Falconiformes along with the Old World vultures or place them in their own order, Cathartiformes. The South American Classification Committee has removed the New World vultures from Ciconiiformes and instead placed them in Incertae sedis, but notes that a move to Falconiformes or Cathartiformes is possible. As of the 51st Supplement (2010) of the American Ornithologists' Union, the California condor is in the family Cathartidae of the order Cathartiformes. The adult California condor is a uniform black with the exception of large triangular patches or bands of white on the underside of the wings. It has gray legs and feet, an ivory-colored bill, a frill of black feathers surrounding the base of the neck, and brownish red eyes. The juvenile is mostly a mottled dark brown with blackish coloration on the head. It has mottled gray instead of white on the underside of its flight feathers. The condor's head has little to no feathers, which helps keep it clean when feeding on carrion. The skin of the head and neck is capable of flushing noticeably in response to emotional state. The skin color varies from yellowish to a glowing reddish-orange. The birds do not have true syringeal vocalizations. They can make a few hissing or grunting sounds only heard when very close. The female condor is smaller than the male, an exception to the rule among birds of prey (the related Andean condor is another exception). Overall length ranges from 109 to 140 cm (43 to 55 in) and wingspan from 2.49 to 3 m (8 ft 2 in to 9 ft 10 in). Their weight ranges from 7 to 14.1 kg (15 to 31 lb), with estimations of average weight ranging from 8 to 9 kg (18 to 20 lb). Wingspans of up to 3.4 m (11 ft) have been reported but no wingspan over 3.05 m (10.0 ft) has been verified. Most measurements are from birds raised in captivity, so it is difficult to determine if major differences exist between wild and captive condors. California condors have the largest wingspan of any North American bird. They are surpassed in both body length and weight only by the trumpeter swan and the introduced mute swan. The American white pelican and whooping crane also have longer bodies than the condor. Condors are so large that they can be mistaken for a small, distant airplane, which possibly occurs more often than that they are mistaken for other bird species. The middle toe of the California condor's foot is greatly elongated, and the hind toe is only slightly developed. The talons of all the toes are straight and blunt and are thus more adapted to walking than gripping. This is more similar to their supposed relatives the storks than to birds of prey and Old World vultures, which use their feet as weapons or organs of prehension.

Nesting milestones have been reached by the reintroduced condors. In 2003, the first nestling fledged in the wild since 1981. In March 2006, a pair of California condors, released by Ventana Wildlife Society, attempted to nest in a hollow tree near Big Sur, California. This was the first time in more than 100 years that a pair of California condors had been seen nesting in Northern California. In October 2010, the wild condor population reached 100 individuals in its namesake state of California, plus 73 wild condors in Arizona. In November 2011, there were 394 living individuals, 205 of them in the wild and the rest in the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, the Santa Barbara Zoo, the Los Angeles Zoo, the Oregon Zoo, and the World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho. In May 2012, the number of living individuals had reached 405, with 179 living in captivity. By June 2014, the condor population had reached 439: 225 in the wild and 214 in captivity. Official statistics from the December 2016 USFWS recorded an overall population of 446, of which 276 are wild and 170 are captive. A key milestone was reached in 2015 when more condors were born in the wild than died.

The California condor conservation project may be one of the most expensive species conservation projects in United States history, costing over $35 million, including $20 million in federal and state funding, since World War II. As of 2007, the annual cost for the condor conservation program was around $2.0 million per year. Successful reintroduction of captive-bred condors into the wild has become a multi-step and complex process, fraught with the need to periodically recapture the birds to test for lead poisoning and sometimes the necessity for lead removal by chelation.

The California condor was described by English naturalist George Shaw in 1797 as Vultur californianus; Archibald Menzies collected the type specimen "from the coast of California" during the Vancouver Expedition. It was originally classified in the same genus as the Andean condor (V. gryphus), but, due to the Andean condor's slightly different markings, slightly longer wings, and tendency to kill small animals to eat, the California condor has been placed in its own monotypic genus. The generic name Gymnogyps is derived from the Greek gymnos/γυμνος "naked" or "bare", and gyps/γυψ "vulture", while the specific name californianus comes from its location in California. The word condor itself is derived from the Quechua word kuntur. The exact taxonomic placement of the California condor and the other six species of New World vultures remains unclear. Though similar in appearance and ecological roles to Old World vultures, the New World vultures evolved from a different ancestor in a different part of the world. Just how different the two are is under debate, with some earlier authorities suggesting that the New World vultures are more closely related to storks. More recent authorities maintain their overall position in the order Falconiformes along with the Old World vultures or place them in their own order, Cathartiformes. The South American Classification Committee has removed the New World vultures from Ciconiiformes and instead placed them in Incertae sedis, but notes that a move to Falconiformes or Cathartiformes is possible. As of the 51st Supplement (2010) of the American Ornithologists' Union, the California condor is in the family Cathartidae of the order Cathartiformes.