Condors at Oregon Zoo on roll in delivering eggs

[depakid]

The Oregon Zoo's endangered California condors are delivering eggs faster than a waitress at Denny's. Since mid-February, the big, baldheaded birds have laid seven eggs, including one Saturday or Sunday and another Monday, putting them on track for a record season.

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The zoo opened its condor breeding operation -- the nation's fourth -- in November 2003 as part of a last-ditch effort to save the emblematic species from extinction. California condors had dwindled to just 22 birds in 1982. Thanks to captive breeding, the population had grown to 321 birds when last counted in February; 172 of those, including seven hatched at the zoo, fly free.

In March 2004, a pair produced the zoo's first egg, which hatched that May. The flock, which has grown to more than 30 adult birds, has produced 22 eggs total. Last year, four of five hatchlings survived. The zoo keeps its condors at the Jonsson Center for Wildlife conservation in rural Clackamas County, a site off-limits to the public. Breeding the birds in as natural a setting as possible, with minimum human contact, gives them a better shot at survival once they're released into the wild, keepers say.

Typically, keepers allow the parents to naturally incubate their eggs for 10 to 14 days, said Shawn St. Michael, assistant curator. Then, when the birds aren't watching, keepers grab the fist-sized, gray-green eggs, replacing them with dummy eggs, a safety measure to ensure that the adults, which stand about 4 feet tall and weigh about 20 pounds, don't inadvertently damage their eggs. The birds don't seem to know the difference; in the weeks that follow, they sit on the dummy eggs, keeping them warm.

Meanwhile, keepers "candle" the real eggs, examining them under bright lights, then place them in electric incubators until shortly before they're due to hatch. They remove the dummy eggs and return the real ones to the nest, so chicks hatch under their parent. In the wild, condors typically produce an egg every other year. Females and males share incubation duties.

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/03/condors_on_roll_in_delivering.html

[hunter]

1. These are wonderful birds. This is good news.

I've always had this crazy suspicion that nature will pull the plug on humanity if we don't save the California condor; that our survival somehow depends upon this bird's survival.

[depakid]

2. More condors were recently released from the captive breeding program

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