Audubon Society learns about condor recovery efforts
Review Photo / Amanda Renko A portion of the proceeds from condor artwork created by Karen Allaben-Confer are donated toward the Peregrine Fund. Allaben-Confer and her husband, John Confer, gave the Susquehanna Valley Audubon Society a presentation about the program Tuesday.
An Ithaca-area couple gave a presentation Tuesday to the Susquehanna Valley Audubon Society on one group's ongoing efforts to repopulate the California condor, a bird once in danger of extinction.
At its population low in 1982, there were only 22 condors left in existence, said John Confer, a retired Ithaca College professor and ornithologist. Today, there are over 400, thanks to the efforts of the Peregrine Fund, an organization devoted to breeding the birds in captivity and then releasing them into the wild.
Confer's wife, Karen Allaben-Confer, spent two years as the artist in residence at the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in Arizona, near the site north of the Grand Canyon where the birds are released. In addition, three of Confer's students worked with the release program.
Confer showed the crowd several photos of the condors, who were placed on the endangered species list in 1967. The birds have a nine-and-a-half foot wingspan and were once widely distributed throughout North America at the end of the glacial period, he said.
The near-extinction of the birds led to what Confer called "one of the most successful wildlife reintroduction stories in the world." It's also one of the most expensive - about $20 million has been spent on releasing the condors, all funded by private donations.
The birds are bred at four different locations in San Diego, Boise, Portland and Los Angeles. Some are then brought to the Grand Canyon to release, Confer said.
In the wild, condors are slow to reproduce. The female will only release an egg once every two years, Confer said. In captive breeding, the eggs are removed, meaning condors may release up to three per year.
The birds can live 40 to 50 years, Confer said, but even the birds who are released are slow to reproduce once they enter the wild. One condor was born in the wild in 2010, and three eggs fledged in 2011, he said.
The group releases two to five condors at a time. The Grand Canyon area was chosen, Confer said, because of its plentiful nesting areas and low human interference beyond the area's tourist sites.
The birds are placed in a release cage and provided carcasses and water to be conditioned to the site, Confer said. The young condors also learn behavior from free-flying adult condors who continue to come back to the site.
Each bird is tagged and traced mostly by radio transmitters, although some have GPS, Confer said. The birds are monitored, with each transmitter emitting its own unique signal. The transmitter also sends out a signal when it detects a lack of movement in the bird, indicating it may have died. From there, staff track down the carcass and try to determine the cause of death.
The major threat to the condor population, Confer said, is lead poisoning. Condors are not predators, but scavengers of meat from already-dead animals. When hunters use lead bullets to shoot an animal, the fragments spread out into the killed animal.
The pieces of lead remain when condors and other scavengers come to feast on the carcass, he said, causing many to ingest lethal levels of lead.
"They die a horrible death," added Allaben-Confer, explaining how hard lead poisoning is on the birds. Treatment is difficult, too - medicine must be injected through the breast, which is painful, she said.
Fifteen of the birds monitored through the Peregrine Fund are known to have died from lead poisoning, with more possible, Confer said. Most of the birds affected by lead poisoning experience it during the hunting months of November and December, he said.
The continued death of condors through lead poisoning threatens the sustainability of the slowly increasing condor population, Confer said.
Another 12 condors were killed by predators, mainly coyotes and eagles, according to data provided in the presentation; others were shot, stabbed or died by other means.
To combat the lead poisoning problem, Peregrine Fund staff have undergone an aggressive public awareness campaign, Confer said. In addition to raising awareness, the fund gives away copper bullets and has arranged with local outdoors stores to sell them at a discounted rate in order to help reduce the likelihood of lead bullet use, he said.
Confer encouraged attendees to donate to the Peregrine Fund. For more information, visit www.condorcliffs.org.
The Susquehanna Valley Audubon Society meets on the third Tuesday of each month at the Page Manor community room, except for in the summer when they meet at various outdoor locations. The group is dedicated to promoting the positive welfare of bird life and wildlife.
Amanda Renko can be reached at (570) 888-9652; or email: arenko@thedailyreview.com.
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