“[He] was furious and terrified, and with good reason: in a matter of
hours, his colossal range had shrunk to four hundred square feet… Giant wings
and telescopic eyes were not going to do him any good in here. On
the other hand, [he] was alive, which is more than you could say for many of
the condors he’d grown up with.”
You would have had to have been one hell of an optimist,
back in the 1980s, to say that the California condor had much hope for
survival. North America’s largest bird
was described as having “one wing in the grave” – between the hunters and the
habitat loss, the electrocutions and the poisonings, the condor seemed to be on
a collision course with extinction. So
dire was its outlook that many conservationists were ready to write the bird
off as a martyr to the cause. When a
bold plan to save the condor was announced – to capture every known bird and
bring them into captivity in a last-ditch effort to breed the birds back from
the edge of extinction – the naysayers were furious. Better, they felt, to let the condor go
extinct in the wild as a free bird, to face “death with dignity.”
The giant vulture did not, of course, go extinct – it was
saved through captive breeding programs housed at the Los Angeles Zoo and San Diego Wild Animal Park. Eventually,
enough birds were produced that reintroduction could be attempted. Today, there are free-flying condors in the skies
of not only California but Arizona as well, with more releases being
contemplated. The population is still heavily monitored and requires constant
logistical support (i.e.: rehabilitation of injured or sick birds), but it’s in
far better shape that it was when the birds were in the low double digits. Together with the sagas of the red wolf and
the black-footed ferret, the story of the California condor is one of the most
inspiring conservation tales of the 20th century. It’s been so successful that many Americans
have taken it for granted, having virtually forgotten both the crisis and the
bird.
Fortunately, NPR environmental correspondent John Nielsen is
happy to remind everyone about how close we came to losing one of our world’s
most majestic birds. In Condor: To the Brink and Back, the Life and
Times of One Giant Bird, Nielsen paints an extraordinarily detailed
portrait of the condor. He (briefly)
describes its ecology and natural history, showing it in a context that no
longer exists. He describes how the bird
was brought to near extinction through a variety of factors, from museum
hunters and egg collectors to gold miners and developers. Most excitingly, he describes the bitter
struggles that broke out as different conservationists and bird lovers fought
over how best to save the condor from extinction. It serves as a reminder that, while everyone
involved may have the interests of the animal at heart, not everyone’s plan of
action will result in a happy ending.
Unlike some conservation stories of the past – such as the
return of the American bison – much of the condor story plays out in very
recent years, which means that Nielsen is able to interview many of the key
players in the story. He introduces us
to the biologists who monitored and trapped the last remaining wild birds, the
zookeepers who cared for them, and the officials who faced the sometimes
difficult task of drumming local support for the birds in the places where they
were to be introduced (one of the chapters that I found most interesting
details a hostile town hall meeting where the local people view the condors as
evidence of a federal government takeover).
Nielsen is able to interview people of divergent viewpoints and let them
speak for themselves, asking the reader to decide where his or her own feelings
and sympathies lie.
Conservation tends to be a rather gloom and doom
profession. Every time we turn around,
this species is in decline and that habitat is disappearing and we’re all going
to die. Every once in a while, however,
we get a win. Not a perfect win, in this
case – the California condor will probably always require considerable monitoring
and support to survive in the wild.
Still, a world with condors is certainly better than one without, in
my opinion. John Nielsen’s Condor shows us what we nearly lost, and
helps us celebrate that which we saved.
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