El Condor Pasa

A novel new method is being used to help sustain a wild population of Californian condors: electroshock therapy. No, that isn't a typo. Twice per year all of the 150 or so remaining birds are captured and electrocuted. It isn't just for kicks, however; over the past decade the biggest single killer of north America's largest bird was death by electrocution after flying into power lines. With a 3 metre wingspan they are more than capable of touching more than one wire at once and being killed; touching just one at a time is relatively safe as the electricity has nowhere to go. Since the introduction of the training death by electrocution has dropped from 66% to just 18%.

The next biggest killer is lead poisoning, thought to be as a result of eating carcasses that have lead shot in them after being hunted by humans. The condors seem to be particularly susceptible to lead and so on their twice yearly grounding they are checked over and operated on if necessary to remove shot. Apparently a ban on lead shot in the area has not led to a reduction in mortality.

This all sounds like quite an arduous experience for the birds themselves but it's probably not as bad as it sounds. In the 1980s there were only a couple of dozen birds left in he wild, at which point they were all captured and brought into captivity. Since then there have been a series of reintroductions back into the wild that have been the genesis of today's 150. As these birds were all born and raised in captivity it's more like visiting home than being abducted by aliens.

The program, as reported in Biological Conservation, is working. In the past 15 years the annual mortality rate has fallen from 38% to just 5.4%, a remarkable achievement. Will this be a large enough population to sustain a genetically diverse enough species in the future? Only time will tell. I recently read an analysis by a genetic statistician that said that, given perfect conditions and full control of who breeds with who, it is very tough indeed for a population smaller than 160 individuals to survive, but we'll never know if we don't try

A Californian condor complete with tracking tags in both wings