Breeding success.

• Author: Cohn, Jeffrey P.
• Position: Andean condor in California

THE YOUNG ANDEAN condor looked puzzled. The nylon net that had covered its home for the past three months was gone. Nothing now separated the bird from a freedom it had never known. After a few minutes, the condor hopped onto a wooden platform and spread its wings in anticipation. Then, as if driven by the inherited memory of countless generations, the condor hurled itself into the clear blue sky.

Unlike other captive-hatched Andean condors released into the wild in Peru in 1980, however, this South American bird was not soaring on South American winds. Instead, it launched its maiden flight from a hillside in the Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge in the Los Padres Mountains fifty miles northwest of Los Angeles, California. Nor did the young condor exactly soar. Rather, it flapped its wings a few times before landing among some large boulders maybe a hundred feet away.

Nevertheless, this and six other Andean condors made history. They were the first captive-hatched condors released to the wild in the United States, set free at a time when no free-ranging condors roamed North American skies. And it was the first time an exotic bird species had been introduced to the wild in the U.S. to help save an endangered native one.

The seven Andean condors released in California in 1988, plus another five freed in Colombia last year, are part of an unusual experiment designed to help wildlife biologists in the United States develop techniques for restoring the rare California condor to the wild. At the same time, the project will help Colombian biologists restock the dwindling Andean condor population in their country.

While most people probably find condors unappealing, these vultures are really quite impressive. With wingspans of 10 feet or more and weighing up to 25 pounds, Andean condors are the world's heaviest fully-flighted birds. Further, they have a beautiful mass of white fluffy feathers draped around their necks that contrasts sharply with their black and gray bodies. Andean males also have a caruncle, or fleshy comb, on their heads that distinguishes them from females and from California male condors. The closely-related California condor, slightly smaller than its Andean cousin, has white patches on the undersides of its wings that are clearly visible in flight. It also has a fluffy mass of black feathers around its neck.

Both Andean and California condors can soar for hours on their broad wings, often covering a hundred miles or more each day in search of food. Like other vultures, condors eat carrion. Their strong, curved beaks can easily tear chunks of flesh from a carcass.

Andean condors once ranged all along the Andes Mountains and Pacific coast of South America, from Venezuela to Tierra del Fuego. Although no one knows how many there are today, Andean condors are considered to be endangered by habitat destruction which has reduced their numbers to perhaps a few thousand in the wild. In Columbia and Venezuela, the northern part of their range, condors are now rare.

Whatever its population, the Andean condor is certainly in far better shape than the California condor. The latter once ranged across the continental United States. By the 19th century, however, it was found only along the western coast...