Plight of the Condor
The Ridley-Tree Condor Preservation Act in action
By Carman Tse
The faint and fading beep is almost drowned in static from the radio receiver that Jesse Grantham is holding as we stand by a country road west of I-5 in Kern County. And as soon as we hear it, the signal disappears. From our location in the San Joaquin Valley, it was unlikely we would spot a California condor anyway. The large birds prefer the thermals of their higher elevations in the Transverse Ranges to soar the skies without ever flapping their nine-foot wingspans.
By now, most are familiar with the California condor’s status as one of the most endangered species in the United States. Currently, there are fewer than 340 individuals that make up the population, with less than half of that number in the wild. In 1987, that number was down to 22, with the last known individual in the wild caught on Easter Sunday of that year. Since then, through an intensive captive breeding program led by the San Diego Wild Animal Park and the Los Angeles Zoo, their numbers have climbed, and individuals were reintroduced to the wild beginning in 1991.
A senior official with the Fish and Wildlife Service leading the condor recovery effort, Grantham is taking me out to Wind Wolves Preserve about 30 miles southwest of Bakersfield. The largest privately owned nature preserve on the West Coast, according to Grantham it is one of the prime spots to view the 35 wild condors in the region.
Enforcement of the Ridley-Tree Condor Preservation Act (AB 821), a ban on the use of lead ammunition while hunting in designated condor habitat, began July 1; violations can get a hunter fined up to $5,000. In the weeks leading up to the ban, seven birds were brought in for treatment of elevated lead levels, including one condor that eventually died. “It’s alarming to see such a concentration of cases within a month time frame,” says Curtis Eng, chief veterinarian of the Los Angeles Zoo, who oversaw treatment of the birds. Lead poisoning has been known to afflict the birds at least since the 1980s, and typically one or two are treated every year for it, ingesting the metal from shot embedded in the carcasses left by hunters. The number of cases, however, put the Fish and Wildlife Service in, as Grantham put it, “crisis mode.”
According to Grantham, the high number of cases within such a short period of time was most likely the result of a single source. Pending lab results, the source remains a mystery, but within the foraging habitat of the Southern California population, hunting is only permitted at privately owned Tejon Ranch, which controls 270,000 acres spanning the Tehachapi Mountains. In response to the lead poisoning incidents, Tejon temporarily suspended the use of firearms on their property for a month.
While it may seem to be in the common interest of Californians to protect condors, the Ridley-Tree Act faced some opposition before it was signed by Governor Schwarzenegger in October of last year, resulting in a Fish and Game commissioner losing his job. Although a Republican and a hunter himself, R. Judd Hanna, an advocate of the bill, was forced to resign from his position last September after a letter sent by 34 GOP lawmakers to the governor called for his removal.
Unsurprisingly, the NRA and the hunting lobby were among the most vocal critics and the bill passed the state legislature along party lines. According to the NRA Members’ Councils of California website, “AB 821 and similar regulatory restrictions are not designed to protect the California condor. They are designed to cripple hunting.” Furthermore, hunters cite that alternatives such as copper alloys may cost twice as much as lead. While the act requires Fish and Game “to provide hunters ... with nonlead ammunition at no or reduced cost through a coupon program,” it prefaces this provision with the catch “to the extent funding is available.” A brochure available on the Fish and Game website simply states, “There is no funding to implement the coupon program.”
The dire state of the California condor and the hurdles the Ridley-Tree Act faced before passing are only a microcosm of the state of the environmental movement in the world around us. In his letter of resignation, Hanna addressed his opponents, including the NRA, by stating, “We may be missing what could, perhaps, be our last opportunity to salvage not only the reputation of our hunting community, but also hunting itself in California ... . Poisoning the California condor is neither honorable nor ethical.”
Among the most expensive and high-profile species recovery efforts in the United States, the California condor has had an estimated $40 million invested in it over the past 20 years, with over half of that estimated to be federal funding. A week stay for chelation treatment for lead poisoning can cost up to $1,200. Indeed, with such a large sum placed on the future of one species already on the brink, it seems almost silly to spend so much on these birds. Some academics have argued for letting the species die off, claiming they are merely a relic of the past already on its way out with the extinction of the Pleistocene-era megafauna. But Grantham argues, “Who makes that decision? Look at the cases of mortality: poaching, lead poisoning, eating carcasses tainted by cyanide, habitat loss,” placing responsibility on humans to clean up the mess they created.
We eventually make it to the top of a ridge inside Wind Wolves preserve flanked by mountains to our east and south. Picking up strong signals from about seven condors on this hot afternoon, we see them from about three miles off. Presumably foraging for food not too far from where a carcass was dropped off last week, the birds appear as small as a speck of dust through our binoculars. One of the birds we see, simply identified as #374, was one of those seven brought in to the L.A. Zoo for treatment in June. Today it is out here, floating freely with its kin.
With a bit of optimism in his voice, Grantham notes, “We’re about two-thirds of the way there.”
Published: 07/16/2008
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