Condors make a meal of a beached gray whale.

On a remote section of beach along the Big Sur coast, Ventana Wilderness Society (VWS) Senior Wildlife Biologist Joe Burnett and I come to the first evidence that California condors have been in the area: a sea otter carcass picked clean. Lying in the sand below us is a tangle of vertebrae and fur along with a white softball-sized skull that resembles a kelp buoy.

Though Burnett, a longtime friend of mine, notes that this is the first time he has observed a sea otter body that has been eaten by condors, this is not the reason we have hiked more than an hour on this sprawling beach. Rather, we have walked through two sea caves, passed by a group of cliff swallows swarming around a mud nest like a bunch of hornets, and wandered past a handful of seasonal waterfalls hanging from coastal cliffs like beaded curtains to try and catch a glimpse of a California condor feeding on a gray whale carcass.

Until a month ago, when the VWS observed the phenomena, the last time any person witnessed such an occurrence was back in 1806. Then, near the Columbia River’s mouth, Captain William Clark of the famed Lewis and Clark Expedition noted a “vulture” with a 10-foot wingspan—i.e. a California condor—“feeding on the remains of a whale and other fish which have been thrown up by the waves on the sea coast.”

Burnett and I are on this hike to witness a piece of what might be wildlife-biology history.