Free-flying Condors in Mexico Reach Historic Milestone; Pair Lays Project's First Egg
April 3, 2007
This week biologists working with the California Condor Recovery Program discovered the first California condor egg laid in Baja California, Mexico since their reintroduction to the Sierra San Pedro de Martír National Park in 2002.
“This is a momentous occasion,” said Mike Wallace, Ph.D., scientist with the Zoological Society of San Diego’s center for Conservation and Research for Endangered Species (CRES) and the California Condor Recovery Program team leader. “It marks the beginning of the breeding phase of the program that we hope will eventually lead to reproductive sustainability in this new population.”
The last documented wild California condor in Mexico was spotted in the late 1930s. The California Condor Recovery Program team joined forces with the Mexican government to reintroduce this species to its native habitat in the pristine mountain range where 11 condors, including this breeding pair, now fly free.
“The occurrence of the first nest and the first egg in the Sierra de San Pedro Martír confirms that the reintroduction of the Californian condor in Mexico is a story of success,” said Adrián Fernández Bremauntz, president of Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Ecología ( National Institute of Ecology). “This is an excellent example of how fruitful collaboration between Mexico and the United States can be when we pool efforts and objectives for the conservation of our shared species.”
Condors #217, a 7-year-old female, and #261, a 6-year-old male, were introduced as juveniles and have only recently entered breeding age. “We had been suspicious of nesting activity over the past month and after repeated attempts we finally located the nest 800 feet (250 meters) off the canyon floor,” said Dr. Wallace. “It is situated in a deserted golden eagle nest. They made an excellent and spectacular choice.”
The California Condor Recovery Program is built upon a foundation of private and public partnerships. The focus of the recovery effort is the release of captive-reared condors to the wild to ultimately establish two self-sustaining populations, one in California and the other in Arizona. It is expected that the condors reintroduced to Baja California, Mexico may one day unite with the condors in California to form one population. The birds have flown within 15 miles of the U.S. and Mexico border.
