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From: sandee@sun16.scri.fsu.edu (Daan Sandee)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: what KIND of condor did you say you saw....?
Message-ID: <729@sun13.scri.fsu.edu>
Date: 20 Sep 90 14:09:31 GMT
References: <36871@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
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In article <36871@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> dmark@acsu.buffalo.edu (David Mark) writes:
    ===-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
    ==           ANDEAN BIRDS TEST SKIES FOR CALIFORNIA CONDOR
    ==
    ==     Between 1988 and 1990, 13 South American fledglings, raised in
    ==captivity in the U.S., were released by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
    ==Service and the Los Angeles Zoo on the 1.75-million-acre Los Padres
    ==National Forest, near Santa Barbara.   ...
    ==         ....  They will eventually be recaptured to augment populations
    ==in South America and to prevent crossbreeding after the California
    ==condors are released.
 Let's certainly hope so!

    ==     The hatching this year of eight California condors has made
    ==biologists optimistic that these giants may return to the California
    ==skies by 1992."
 As I understand it, one main cause for their disappearance was deaths due to
 ingestion of lead shot from prey. This problem is not going to be solved
 unless lead shot is banned. Anyone have any information on that?

    ==Source:  National Geographic Magazine, "Earth Almanac" column, 
    ==         October 1990, p. 140. 
    ==Copyright: National Geographic Society, 1990
    ===-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
    ==
    ==A.B.A. listers:  If the California Condors are re-introduced in
    ==1992, will we have to wait 10 years (introduced birds rule) 
    ==before we can count them for our lists again?

This is a unique case - at least, I know of no other case of a native North
Amercian species extirpated in the wild and then reintroduced from captive-
raised birds. (There are plenty of cases where native species have been
locally reintroduced, like Turkey).
A.B.A. will no doubt treat it as a special case.
The general rule is : there must be a viable wild population. With a long-
lived, slowly maturing species like the condor, it may take a long time
before anybody can say with certainty that a viable (self-propagating)
population has been established. I assume that the ABA Checklist Committee
will spend the rest of the century fighting about it.
Also : if ABA finally gives the nod, in the year 2002, does that retroactively
validate sightings before that time? Or are all sightings invalid until ABA
says otherwise?
Finally, are they going to recapture all Andean condors as soon as the
California Condors are released? Otherwise, there will be innumerable fights
about which Condor it was we just saw there.

Daan Sandee                                           sandee@sun16.scri.fsu.edu
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052  (904) 644-7045