Into the Wild…
Posted by bbc on 04 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: birds
No, not the movie. I’m leaving behind my movie obsession for the moment and moving on to birds and flying.
Today’s Oregonian had a story about the possibility that three of the birds raised in the Oregon Zoo’s condor program could fly free later this month near the Grand Canyon. Our Zoo joined the California Condor Recovery Program in 2001 – and has been very successful in hatching out baby condors. Four of “our” birds were transported to the Peregrine Fund’s center in Idaho last year in preparation for this release in Arizona. Many details and background information can be found on the Zoo’s Condor page at http://www.oregonzoo.org/Condors/index.htm
The breeding center is not on public view so we have to make do with pictures and videos.
This release is very exciting news. Condors are amazing birds and their successful reintroduction into the wild after almost being wiped out is a wonderful example of captive breeding programs doing what they’re intended to do. The only reintroduction sites at the moment are in California, Arizona, and Baja Mexico. Someday we hope to have one in Oregon – this is part of their historical range even if the name is California Condor.
One other bird that hatched in our facility is already flying free in California’s Pinnacles National Monument. I believe I’ve seen that bird – not that I could tell an Oregon-raised bird from any other by looking – but still. I was in that area in 2005, a few months after he was released. And I did see a condor. So it seems perfectly plausible to me that it was ours. In any event, I was pleased and astounded to see one outside of a cage. And I hope to see many more.
My desk was behind this column.