Back in the 1980's, the population of the California Condor plummeted to a mere 22 birds. Wildlife advocates and officials had to make a choice: allow the population to wink out, or capture all the birds and put them in a breeding program.
David Phillips, director of the Earth Island Institute, ruminates out loud about the fate of the endangered species, one of the rarest birds in the world. Still doesn't like the idea of putting a wild bird in a zoo, even in an attempt to save it. His advice was ignored — perhaps rightly.
I still think we were right about the condors. But I also think that some compromise, some sort of middle-ground strategy, might have worked. When they determined that, if carefully done, the birds would double-clutch; that if the first egg was lost or removed, the condors would lay a second egg — the program could have bult a captive population without sacrificing the wild population. They could have let the wild population slowly rebild by protecting its habitat, while still building a captive population…There could have been focus on the habitat issues that are still unresolved. Lead poisoning in the condor's home range is no better now than it was when we blew the whistle on it. The captive-breeding people had just given up on the habitat. They basically didn't care. If the release of captive birds didn't work in California, they figured, then they would just release them in the Grand Canyon, or in Mexico. They didn't care about the condor's home range the way that we did.
We lost. They captured all twenty-one remaining wild condors and put them in cages in zoos and breeding programs. They've had mixed success. They've raised a lot of birds. But the birds that they've release have had lots of problems. They swoop down on picnic tables and grab people's sandwiches. Wild condors would never do that in a million years. They sip antifreeze in puddles. Things that no self-respecting wld condor would ever do. I still think we were right. I still think that hte program's failure to concentrate on the habitat has hurt us in a lot of ways. The emphasis they giave to the zoos as the placs to save the endangered species — what a misguided message! To think that we're ever going to solve the roblems of extnction through zoos!
[From a thoughtful book of interviews with some of David Brower's countless friends on many of our most pressing issues.]
Must say, if we haven't reduced the amount of lead in the condor's habitat its not for lack of trying. In 2007 the governor of California signed a law that banned the use of lead ammunition in the area.
On the other hand…can imagine that wild birds might be smarter, warier.
But is it true?
[Here's #161 of the Southern California flock, hatched in the San Diego Zoo in l999, and released in the Ventana Wildernessl]
Kit Stolz 