Claifornia Condor in the Desert

For the ArcGIS online project we received for this class I began to do research into the several endangered and threatened species of animals located in the US. As the research progressed I began to think about how easy it would be to choose a case where there has been no recovery of the species and discuss the declining situation of the animal in question. Instead I began to think about trying to find a specific case where there has been some success in rehabilitating either the environment in which the animal lives or the animal itself on the way to recovering a healthy population. As such I stumbled upon the California Condor, while not the most glamorous of animal species it does still represent a small victory in the recognition of humans as to their effects and the subsequent mitigation of those effects.

In 1987 the United States government put into action a conservation plan that lead to the capture of the remaining 22 California Condors and the introduction of a program to start reducing the risk to the bird. The California Condor is one of the world’s rarest bird species so steps were taken to breed the birds back to a healthy population total, this was accomplished at Los Angeles Zoo and San Diego Safari park. The leading cause of the decline of the California Condor has been due to poaching, lead poisoning and habitat destruction. There have been several initiatives to help reduce the risk from each of these areas of potential danger.

The Condor lives in the terrestrial desert biome  of Earth, mainly a scavenger it relies on the death of small to large mammals to feed on. As such one of the leading factors in the decline of the population was lead poising from gun shot left in the carcasses of animals and then eaten by the condors. The condors think the pellets are bone and eat them, then they become exposed to increasing amounts of lead and become poisoned, the leading prevention and mitigation of this issue was the introduction of copper pellets to be used when hunting. These are cheaper to manufacture and don’t have the same effect on the birds as the lead pellets do. In addition the poising habitat destruction has been a major factor in the decline of the bird species. As we push our populations out into more developable areas we begin to encroach on the natural habitat of many species.

The thing about the Condor story is that is has been a relative success, the map below shows the population density of California cities, the red to brown polygons, overlaid on the area extent of the Condor habitat, that area shown in purple. Despite inhabiting areas that are relatively close to the major city centers the Condor has been able to thrive and bring itself back from the brink of extinction through conservation plans instituted and conscious decisions being made to help the bird thrive. The most recent count of the condor put the population total of known condors around 435 birds, 237 living in the wild and 198 in captivity. For having a birth rate of one egg every two years per adult couple this is pretty good for the Condor. The come back of the bird shows that through the recognition of the problems caused by humans the decision to try and change those problems it is possible to rehabilitate a species into a thriving and healthy population conserving the animal for generations to come.

 

 The map below is a quick look at the total extent of the biome of the California Condor, a good 1/4 of the US on the West coast is denoted as viable territory for the bird species to thrive.