California Condors Close-Up

This article was really apropos for me, as I just got back from a volunteer condor nest watch for the USFWS in the Sespe Wilderness. Your article had great photos! You were really fortunate to be in the right place at the right time!

Great photos Paul!

THIS IS A FEATURE I HAVE AWAITED since the tragic "Jesusita" fire and concerns then at the Tejon Ranch Conservancy [in Kern County] on the status & health of "The Santa Barbara Four" at the SB Zoo! ;-) Looking forward to the forthcoming feature article on this topic, guys! WELL DONE! "Only in THE INDY"! ;-)

terrific photos, Paul!
Matt, I hope in your future article you handle the tricky question of just how much government money has been spent to rescuscitate a dying species [how much spent per bird]? This is a "trophy" species and, in a sense, the program's "success" tends to mask how much biodiversity we are losing. Further, how many of these condors truly "live in the wild" and feed on carrion they find themselves, and how many actually eat those "beef popsicles" USFS personnel drop off out there...? I know by Lion Canyon these birds mainly eat what we humans put out there for them, since we can be sure it's lead-free. The issue is that maybe these beautiful birds are actually in a very large "zoo" -- and since humans have taken encroached/impacted most of their habitat it's a huge exaggeration to say they're BACK when it's actually a very controlled return, amazingly expensive, and perhaps those monies could be better spent rescuing scores of other species at much less cost. I know this isn't a very popular view.

Good points to research from DrDan. As a kid growing up in Santa Paula I remember taking jeep trips deep into the Sespe and up Hopper Mtn. just to go see these amazing birds (plus a few bears, some trout and many a snake). Anyway, the whole condor project is a touchy subject. Why do we spend millions of taxpayers dollars to help keep alive a species left over from the Pleistocene era when large abundant predators left plenty of carcasses for large carrion feeders to consume? Add to that the fact that condors were routinely killed by settlers and later ranchers back in the 1800s (blamed for killing young livestock when it was actually the golden eagles), habitat loss, don't forget the fashionable egg collecting days of the early 1900s, more habitat loss, DDT, lead bullets, did I say habitat loss? etc. I have to admit though, it has been a thrill for our family to have seen 3 in the last 3 years: 2 in the local backcountry and one soaring out over Pt. Conception. Sadly though, if left completely alone today— condors would continue to go extinct. So yes we are interfering with Nature with one big costly zoo experiment. Does it ever end? Maybe this one is just too much of a dead end to keep going...