EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

The Greatest Bird in the Grandest Canyon

California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus), Family Cathartidae
Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, USA

Explanation:  This week's EPOW episode begins on July 4th, Independence Day for the U.S.A.!  In celebration of this event, this week we present a symbol of freedom itself -- no, not a Bald Eagle, but rather a California Condor, flying free over one of the greatest canyons on the planet.

Once reduced to a global population of only 22 wild birds and on the edge of extinction, the recovery of the California Condor is an amazing success story.  

In 1987, all 22 wild birds were captured and put into captive breeding programs as a last-ditch effort to save the species from oblivion.  

It worked.  There are now over 180 California Condors back in the wild, and over 380 total including those still in several captive breeding facilities.  

Many recovery obstacles still remain -- such as birds picking up plastic trash, pesticides, and lead from their environment -- the future is bright only if the recovery programs continue with vigilance, funding, and dedication from the amazing biologist and managers who have given this grand flyer a new chance on life.  (And you can volunteer to help this program!)

      
California Condors are now commonly seen along South Rim of the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona.

Birds released from the captive breeding facilities are marked with a wing-tag and unique number (that does not harm the bird or hinder its flight), so it can be readily tracked.  

Here is Condor #33 ... now a 15-year-old female.  

The greatest North American bird ... now flying free in the greatest
North American canyon!  Here is an immature condor; juveniles are
distinguished by the all-dark head.  Note that it has no wing tag and
number ... because it has been hatched and raised completely
in the wild.  The population is slowly recovering!

So let us celebrate this U.S.A. holiday of Independence
with responsibility and with pride that we can reverse the 
course of extinctions, and honor the grand forms of life 
and landscape that we are so privileged to hold in security 
for generations to come.