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

~•~

Down in Los Angeles Zoo, the egg from Big Sur hatched four days before it was expected to. Clark says it was not a problem; scientists were just a little off when approximating when the egg was laid.

The chick will be brought up in the Los Angeles Zoo by its grandparents, Malibu and Topatopa, for about nine months. Then the bird will be put in a pen with a group of condors that are also scheduled to be released into the wild. The young condor is expected to be given back to VWS to be released into the Big Sur backcountry by early 2008.

Late last week, Burnett flew by the Big Sur nesting spot in a helicopter and noticed that Number 168 was being protective of the area. The biologist concluded that the father condor was safeguarding the young chick inside.

Despite the success of the complicated mission, the chick is far from being in the clear. In one month, the biologists will have to return and give the young condor a vaccination to protect it from West Nile virus, which can be lethal to birds.

Another obstacle to the condor’s safety is the presence of manmade debris in the environment. The condors have always used bone fragments and small stones to aid in the digestion of food that they regurgitate for the baby birds; recently, biologists have noticed that the parent-birds, mistaking trash such as glass and metal for digestive aides, feed it to their chicks.

VWS’s biggest worry is the presence of lead in the environment. When condors, which are scavengers, feed on game that was felled by lead shot, they can get lead poisoning, which is oftentimes fatal.

Burnett is especially concerned about this young chick because the baby bird’s mother has already had a brush with death from lead poisoning.

Despite the success of the complicated egg switch, the biologists and volunteers at VWS know that the struggle for this chick’s survival in the wild is far from over. It isn’t predators or other perils of the wild that concern Burnett, but the toxic trash that might find its way into the food the parent condors dutifully gather. The chick, he says, is “Still one feeding away from potential disaster.”

TO FOLLOW THE EFFORTS OF VWS’S CONDOR REINTRODUCTION PROGRAM, go to ventanaws.org.