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The only surviving member of the genus Gymnogyps, the California Condor is a New World Vulture sports the largest wingspan of any North American bird, with a width of 3.0 meters (9.8 feet). They can live upwards of 60 years, which makes them one of the longest-living bird species on the planet. These impressive feats might be why the California Condor appears prominently in the mythology of many indigenous tribes of what is now the state of California.
Already vulnerable to low populations, due to their late sexual maturity and the common size of a nest being only one egg, the California Condor was unable to cope with the invasion of settlers in the 1800s. DDT poisoning, lead poisoning, a Gold Rush-era pet trade, and habitat destruction, as well as poaching due to a belief that condors killed cattle, brought the species to its knees. By 1987, there were only 22 condors in existence, both in the wild and in captivity.
However, due to the effort of the Los Angeles Zoo, San Diego Wild Animal Park, and the Oklahoma City Zoo and Botanical Garden, the California Condor unbent one of the most expensive species conservation programs in American history. Successful releases into the wild of captive bred birds began in the early 1990s and have brought the population to 425 in October 2014.
Though it remains one of the rarest birds in the world, captive breeding and release programs still continue to try and establish a more stable wild population.
Category Artwork (Digital) / Animal related (non-anthro)
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 1000 x 1000px
File Size 567.7 kB
when i was growing up in the 50s and 60s in the north central sierras,
we used to see a kind of vulture all the time that had a wattle like turkeys have, and everyone called them turkey buzzards.
i've never been entirely certain if they were or weren't the same bird. same big wingspan, same all black except for the head that was red.
i seem to think they started dissapearing along about the time trains and busses started getting less common and multilane freeways and cars more so, in the late 60s and early 70s.
an era that was good for almost everything else: war was winding down, civil rights were becoming real rights, mccarthyism was on the way out, long hair, science fiction and creativity in general was becoming increasingly popular, a human had sat foot on the moon, collages were being made affordable and everyone was taking classes and people where even becoming concerned about the environment,
but transportation policy became one of worshipping the automobile, putting it ahead of everything else, and people were being sold disposable everything where before everything had been recyclable and everyone did without thinking about it or calling it that.
changes always moving both forward and back at the same time.
(human) population increase was a large part of what was changing everything too.
i still think population increase and transportation policy are as big a cause of the climate and environment problem,
as the increased demand for and consumption of electrical energy.
we used to see a kind of vulture all the time that had a wattle like turkeys have, and everyone called them turkey buzzards.
i've never been entirely certain if they were or weren't the same bird. same big wingspan, same all black except for the head that was red.
i seem to think they started dissapearing along about the time trains and busses started getting less common and multilane freeways and cars more so, in the late 60s and early 70s.
an era that was good for almost everything else: war was winding down, civil rights were becoming real rights, mccarthyism was on the way out, long hair, science fiction and creativity in general was becoming increasingly popular, a human had sat foot on the moon, collages were being made affordable and everyone was taking classes and people where even becoming concerned about the environment,
but transportation policy became one of worshipping the automobile, putting it ahead of everything else, and people were being sold disposable everything where before everything had been recyclable and everyone did without thinking about it or calling it that.
changes always moving both forward and back at the same time.
(human) population increase was a large part of what was changing everything too.
i still think population increase and transportation policy are as big a cause of the climate and environment problem,
as the increased demand for and consumption of electrical energy.
Oh, I'm wholeheartedly in agreement. Population is one of our main issues, but you can't talk about it, or people tell you to go kill yourself to help the population issue. I wish we could have more nuance to the discussion, but I think as a species we're pretty much dooming ourselves.
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