Four young captive-bred California condors (Gymnogyps californianus) are set to be released on Saturday September 28 at Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in northern Arizona. The 28th annual event celebrating these endangered birds will also be live streamed via The Peregrine Fund’s YouTube channel, at 1 p.m. MDT/12 p.m. PDT.
The young condors all hatched at The Peregrine Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho. The Peregrine Fund worked with the Oregon Zoo, Los Angeles Zoo, and San Diego Zoo Safari Park to bring them to Vermilion Cliffs National Monument to release the endangered birds into the wild.
Condors are the largest bird species in North America and a crucial part of the ecosystem, but during the 1980s, the California condor population declined to just 22 individuals. The raptors faced a deadly combination of habitat loss, poaching, lead poisoning, accidents with power lines, the insecticide Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), and most recently, Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) or bird flu.
California condors are also considered sacred to many Indigenous cultures. The Yurok Tribe of the Pacific Northwest call California condors “prey-go-neesh” in Yurok, and the birds have been tied to the Yurok Hlkelonah, or the cultural and ecological landscape, since the beginning of time. The tribe has officially been a driving force on condor reintroduction since 2008. This work and the interdisciplinary California Condor Recovery Program has helped save them from the brink of extinction.
[Related: CT scans look inside a California condor egg.]
As of June 2024, there are 85 condors in the wild in the rugged canyon country of northern Arizona and southern Utah. The total world population of endangered California condors includes more than 560 individuals. Half of these are flying free in Arizona, Utah, California, and Mexico.
The first condor release at Vermilion Cliffs National Monument was on December 12, 1996. The event was live streamed in 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions, reaching over 10,000 viewers. Last year was the first year tha that release did not take place due to bird flu. The virus killed 21 condors in the Utah-Arizona flock and officials did not release any condors as a way to prevent additional infections.
[Related: Thriving baby California condor is a ray of hope for the unique species.]
During the recent HPAI outbreak, one female California condor nestling became a poster bird for resilience, after her mother died from HPAI and was raised by foster parents at The Peregrine Fund’s propagation facility. She is set to officially enter the wild during this year’s release event.
“This year’s condor release will be especially impactful given the losses we experienced in 2023 from HPAI and lead poisoning,” The Peregrine Fund’s California condor program director Tim Hauck said in a statement. “With only 85 condors remaining in the Utah-Arizona flock and lead poisoning still a prominent issue, the release of these four condors will have a significant impact on the recovery program. But the California condor release this year is not just a celebration of these four condors, it is a moment of triumph for the biologists, volunteers, wildlife rehabilitators, recovery partners, and supporters who persevered through the last year.”
[Related: Inside the Yurok Tribe’s mission to make critically endangered condors thrive.]
The condor team can’t predict exactly when the birds will decide to leave the release pen, so the live-stream event will have a picture-in-picture set up with a camera on the pen. It will also include videos and interviews with the condor biologists and conservationists who work with these special birds.
This condor conservation effort is a cooperative program by federal, state, and private partners, including The Peregrine Fund, the Bureau of Land Management’s Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, and the Bureau of Land Management in Utah (BLM), Arizona Game and Fish Department, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Grand Canyon, and Zion National Parks, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Kaibab and Dixie National Forests, and tribes (Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians [Kaibab-Paiute Tribe] and Navajo Nation), among several other supporting groups and individuals.