An incredible journey from a cliff-top cave in backcountry Big Sur to the Los Angeles Zoo—and back.

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This was an unexpected development. It could mean that this egg would not be able to be transferred to the Big Sur backcountry in two days. If there was no sign of pipping within the next 20 hours, the scientists might have had to find a new egg for Big Sur.

The next egg from the Los Angeles facility wouldn’t be ready until early May. That would have meant Burnett had spent hours preparing the return nest entry for nothing.

The scientists realized that they were captive to the whims of the natural processes inside the egg. “There’s always a chance that pipping won’t happen,” Clark said. “You have to go on an egg’s schedule.”  

The following day, Clark X-rayed the egg and determined the chick was in the correct hatching position. Later that afternoon, he created a tiny breathing hole for the bird using a 16-gauge needle.

By the time evening came, the condor still had not pipped. The next day, it was supposed to be transferred to the Big Sur backcountry.

Clark decided to sleep at the zoo that night. At 3am, he checked the egg. It still hadn’t pipped.

He woke up again at 5:30am. Bleary eyed, he checked the egg and discovered that it had finally pipped.

He immediately placed the egg in a portable incubator, carried it out to his truck, and took off for Santa Barbara, where he would meet Brandt. Clark checked on the egg a few times during the drive and heard the chick grunting from inside the shell.

In Santa Barbara, Clark handed the incubator to Brandt, who drove it to the Salinas airport. There, after little more than a handshake with Burnett, the two checked the chick. Through a hole in the shell that was quickly increasing, the biologists could make out the chick’s eyes.

Not wanting to traumatize the baby condor, the biologists realized they would have to be particularly smooth on their return mission to the cliff face.