|
|
|
WingBeats Newsletter
Sample Articles
AC-9: The Last Wild Condor
|
As an ornithologist, I knew the story of AC-9 (Adult Condor #9) long before I came to the Condor Program in 1990. By then he was part of the captive breeding population at the Los Angeles Zoo. However, it wasn’t until I volunteered to help the Los Angeles Zoo staff conduct their annual condor physicals that I really got to know and respect the spirit of this survivor. On paper the protocol for this procedure is simple; enter the flight pen, capture the condor, place it in a kennel, and be ready to retrieve it when the veterinarian is ready for the exam. In reality, I found myself chasing AC-9 up and down the steep slope the flight pen was built on and slipping repeatedly on the slimy rat carcasses used to feed the captive population. Each time I thought I had him he would flash me a look of defiance and slip my grip at the very last minute, leaving me huffing and puffing, cursing under my breath. It wasn’t until I climbed the chain link wall of his pen that I was able to corner him and grab him while he hung from the roof by his powerful beak. As he struggled, never conceding his fate, I was finally able to get him into his kennel, but not before he slipped my grip just long enough to give me one last look of defiance then proceed to take a chunk of flesh from the back of my hand. As I leaned against the kennel, my legs cramping, smelling like a dead rat, and trying to stop the bleeding, I could feel him thrashing against the walls of the kennel, and I remember thinking, that’s one tough bird.
|
|
|
Fortunately for me, AC-9 and I never met again. I’ve moved on from the Condor Program, and AC-9 is no longer at the Los Angeles Zoo. But I carry a scar from that day, like a badge of honor, and often when I look at it, it brings me back to that day, and I think about the amazing story of AC-9 and his contributions to the battle to avoid extinction.
California condors flourished in the prehistoric wilderness of the late Pleistocene epoch, ranging from southern Canada to northern Mexico in the west, and across the southern United States to Florida. Like other vultures, condors do not kill for food but feed on available carrion. During this epoch, condors fed on the carcasses of giant ground sloths, mastodons, wooly mammoths, camels, and saber-toothed cats. The decline of the condor coincided with the extinction of these Pleistocene mammals. However, unlike its prey, the condor survived extinction in the west by subsisting on food items that included mule deer, tule elk, pronghorn antelope, and marine mammals that washed up on the Pacific shore.
Just when it appeared that the condor decline had been arrested, and the Pacific population was secure, the condor experienced a second and more dramatic decline. The European settlement of the west, particularly the California gold rush of the mid-1800s, brought persecution in the form of wanton shooting, poisoning, specimen and egg collection, collisions with man-made structures and loss of habitat. Unable to escape modern man and his impact on the landscape, the condor found itself facing extinction in the wild.
By 1986, there were only five condors left in the wild, one female and four males, all barely surviving in the remote mountains of southern California, their last stronghold. One of those condors was AC-9, a seven-year-old male. Despite his age and inexperience, AC-9 was able to attract AC-8, the last wild female, and together they produced the last condor egg laid in the wild.
With only five condors left in the wild and the fear that more would be lost, the process of trapping the remaining wild condors was initiated. AC-8 was one of the first to be captured, and by early 1987, there was only one wild condor left, AC-9. Despite being trapped before and wearing a radio transmitter, AC-9 was able to elude trappers for several months before being caught.
On the morning of Easter Sunday, April 19, 1987, AC-9 was finally captured, and for the first time in 11,000 years, the condor no longer graced the skies of North America. AC-9 joined the 26 other condors already in captivity at the Los Angeles Zoo and the San Diego Wild Animal Park. A small population with an uncertain future, but the last hope for the continued survival of the California condor.
An analysis was conducted to determine the genetic origins of the captive condor population, and the remaining condors were paired according to a formula that would maximize the genetic diversity of the captive population. AC-9 and AC-8 were separated and given new mates. By 1989, AC-9 and his new mate, Squapuni, produced their first egg in captivity, and between 1989 and 2002, AC-9 and his new mate went on to lay 20 eggs and successfully produce 15 chicks. Many of these chicks were released to the wild; in fact, AC-9 is the father and in some cases grandfather of several of the young condors flying free in the wild today.
In January of 1992, Xewe and Chocuyens, two young condors produced in captivity, made conservation history when they were released to the wilds of southern California. How appropriate it was that Xewe turned out to be the offspring of AC-9 and Chocuyens the offspring of AC-8. How amazing it was that the first two condors released to the wild would be the offspring of the last wild male and female condors brought into captivity.
By 2002 both the captive and wild condor populations had grown to numbers large enough that program leaders felt comfortable releasing some of the original wild condors back to the wild, which included AC-9. It was believed that these once wild condors would make excellent mentor birds, helping captive hatched condors safely adjust to the wild, and teaching them to find food, roost sites, and nesting caves.
In May 2002, after 15 years in captivity, AC-9 was successfully released back to the wilds of southern California and to everyone’s amazement, soon after paired up with a young female, and two years later produced an egg that hatched on Easter Sunday - the same holiday on which AC-9 was captured 17 years ago! And so another chapter in the amazing story of AC-9 is about to be written and I can’t wait to read it.
|
|
