Condor (17 page)

In the desperate 1980s, when ravens were seen breaking condor eggs and eating the contents, biologists like Rob Ramey shot at birds that approached the nest caves. (Courtesy of Rob Roy Ramey II)

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By the 1980s, almost all of the remaining wild condors had been trapped at least once, and most had numbered ID tags and radio transmitters hanging from the front of their wings. (Christie Van Cleve)

In 1987, the last wild condor was captured and taken to the San Diego Wild Animal Park. (Courtesy of the Zoological Society of San Diego)

Captive birds began producing one egg every year, and some laid two or even three. (Courtesy of the Zoological Society of San Diego)

Some of the condor chicks were raised by biologists wearing condor puppets on their hands. (Courtesy of the Zoological Society of San Diego)

Even the notoriously antisocial condor known as Topa Topa fathered an egg. (Anthony Prieto)

Residents of southern Utah and northern Arizona said they didn't want the condor around. (Christie Van Cleve)

In 1996 the birds were released near the Grand Canyon, where they sometimes buzzed the crowds on the South Rim.

Condors often soar for hundreds of miles in a single day. (Photo by Christie Van Cleve)

Some birds raised in zoos have had trouble learning to be wild, turning up at Burger Barns, airport runways, and on the decks of homes built on the sides of mountains. (Photo by Denise Stockton; courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Condors are threatened by lead fragments found in the carcasses abandoned by hunters—and by the nuts and bottle caps that sometimes show up when the birds are X-rayed. (Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Zoo)

In the Hopper Mountain Condor Refuge in California, birds are regularly trapped and tested for lead. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Condors that fail to adjust to the wild are flown to the zoos for treatment. Most are eventually returned to the wild. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)