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Monday, January 6, 2014

Book Review: Condor: To the Brink and Back - the Life and Times of One Giant Bird


[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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