An outbreak has killed 20 condors in the Southwest, putting wildlife conservationists on high alert.
In Arizona, fans of the endangered California condor frequently gather at the historic Navajo Bridge at Vermilion Cliffs, near where some of the very first condors were reintroduced to the wild, to watch breeding adults engage in their ritual courtship dances. The male stands in front of his mate, his dark, glossy wings spread, bald head bowed, circling her in a slow strut, rocking from one foot to the other.
Spring, when bonded pairs tend to their gawky, fluffy gray chicks, is a good time to celebrate the comeback of the Pleistocene-era vulture that very nearly went extinct before being returned to the wild in 1992. In late March The Peregrine Fund, which manages the Arizona-Utah flock, announced that the first eggs of the 2023 season had been discovered. “We have quite a few other pairs we suspect are nesting but haven’t been able to confirm yet, so we expect the numbers to climb over the next few weeks,” condor program director Tim Hauck wrote in a Facebook post. “We had 13 confirmed nesting attempts in 2022, the highest number since the establishment of the AZ-UT population in the late 1990s, and we’re hoping to equal or even best that number this year.”
California Condors vs. Avian Flu: Can the Endangered Birds Survive? • The Revelator
In Arizona, fans of the endangered California condor frequently gather at the historic Navajo Bridge at Vermilion Cliffs, near where some of the very first condors were reintroduced to the wild, to watch breeding adults engage in their ritual courtship dances. The male stands in front of his mate, his dark, glossy wings spread, bald head bowed, circling her in a slow strut, rocking from one foot to the other.
Spring, when bonded pairs tend to their gawky, fluffy gray chicks, is a good time to celebrate the comeback of the Pleistocene-era vulture that very nearly went extinct before being returned to the wild in 1992. In late March The Peregrine Fund, which manages the Arizona-Utah flock, announced that the first eggs of the 2023 season had been discovered. “We have quite a few other pairs we suspect are nesting but haven’t been able to confirm yet, so we expect the numbers to climb over the next few weeks,” condor program director Tim Hauck wrote in a Facebook post. “We had 13 confirmed nesting attempts in 2022, the highest number since the establishment of the AZ-UT population in the late 1990s, and we’re hoping to equal or even best that number this year.”
California Condors vs. Avian Flu: Can the Endangered Birds Survive? • The Revelator