Posted on 02/04/2017 6:16:32 PM PST by Mariner
Tiani Williams has spent hours hiding near the stinking remains of road-killed deer. When the stench attracts a turkey vulture into her wire trap, she throws a flannel sheet over the bird and starts a series of tests aimed at her real goal: Returning the California condor to her Yurok ancestral lands in the states northwest corner. Jane Braxton Little
Today her objective is within sight. The Yurok tribe, the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have launched a formal review of a project that could see Americas largest land bird flying over the North Coasts redwoods as early as next year.
Its a gamble whose success, ironically, depends on hunters.
Gymnogyps californianus was tottering on the brink of extinction in the 1980s, when the population of the entire species was reduced to a mere 22 individuals. Today, thanks to a $5 million-a-year federal recovery program, condor numbers have climbed to more than 400, over half of them foraging in the wilds of Central and Southern California, Arizona, Utah and Baja, Mexico.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
26lbs, 10 foot wingspan flying at 1000ft. They often cover more than 150miles per day looking for meat, gorging every 3-10 days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_condor
God put all the animals in our trust. We should endeavor to do the best we can.
Any windfarms nearby?
We have Golden Eagles, Bald Eagles and turkey buzzards a’plenty here at the Lake of the Ozarks all winter. Water is open. Fish can be found.
Yes, an enormous wind farm throughout the Altamont pass at the northern end of their natural range.
Several have been chopped up.
We have seen them while driving up the coat those things are hugh and have series wingspans
“condor advocates are reaching out to hunters in an education program that emphasizes the effects of lead ammunition on condors and wildlife generally”
Is this possible? How many lead bullets would it take to poison the wildlife?
I have a hard time believing that enough animals are carrying around lead in them, to be this big of a problem.
Evidently studies prove me wrong, but it sure seems like a stretch.
I call bullshirt.
Like global warming.
How many have actually succumbed to lead poisoning? I doubt any.
They are dishonestly conflating lead shot for fowl with jacketed bullets for game.
California Condors do not eat other birds. They are too small.
They eat fallen game, and it’s rare indeed to find a lead bullet in fallen game. Or Coyotes. Or any other large mammal.
If a deer dies in the woods, 10 of these guys show up from all over the place and eat it. Everything but the bones.
They are being dishonest.
Condors do not eat that duck that took only 5 pellets of #8 and fell 600 yards away.
If it doesn’t weigh 40lbs and mammal, they are not interested.
Lead bullets do not poison the condors. This is a scam to make it hard for gun owners to shot and hunt is all.
I now nothing about hunting or condors, but yeah, that sounds specious.
I once saw a flock of buzzards consume a large dog carcass in short order. Most impressive how they ate everything so fast. Huge birds too.
It’s ok as long as they don’t go to the northeast part of the state. Ground Squirrel country.
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