Grand Canyon National Park - California Condors (U.S. National Park Service)

California Condor chick #87 on S Rim of Grand Canyon NP.

US Fish & Wildlife Service

A young California condor

Jump to the latest Condor Update

Regarded as one of the rarest birds in the world, the California condor (Gymnogyps californianus) is the largest land bird in North America with a wingspan of 9 1/2 feet and weighing up to 22 pounds. Adults are primarily grayish-black except for triangle-shaped patches of white underneath their wings. These patches are visible when condors are flying overhead and offer a key identification characteristic. Males and females are identical in size and plumage. The bare heads of condors are grayish-black as juveniles and turn a dull orange as adults.

Condors are members of the vulture family and are opportunistic scavengers, feeding exclusively on dead animals such as deer, cattle, rabbits, and large rodents. Using thermal updrafts, condors can soar and glide at up to 50 miles per hour and travel 100 miles or more per day searching for food while expending little energy. When not foraging for food, condors spend most of their time perched at a roost. Cliffs, tall conifers, and snags in Grand Canyon National Park serve as roost sites.

Mature California Condor 33. NPS photo by Michael Quinn

Grand Canyon National Park

A mature California condor #33

Condors become sexually mature at about five or six years of age and mate for life. Most nest sites have been found in caves and rock crevices. Condors do not build nests. Instead, an egg about 5 inches in length and weighing around 10 ounces is deposited on bare ground. Condors lay a single egg normally every other year. The egg hatches after 56 days of incubation and both parents share responsibilities for feeding the nestling. Young condors leave the nest when they are 5 to 6 months old.

There are currently around 60 free flying condors in Arizona with one being the first chick to hatch in the wild in the state in over 100 years.

More About the Condor Re-introduction Program

July - August 2008 Condor Update from Grand Canyon National Park

Hello Condor Enthusiasts--
The latest California condor numbers from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, as of July 31, 2008:

World total: 332CA: 87 (including 8 chicks: 5 in the south and 3 in the Big Sur area)

Baja: 14AZ/UT: 65 (including one confirmed and one suspected chick).

This does not include 250M who is expected to remain in captivity due to his dislocated wing

Arizona breeding summary:

From five nesting pairs, we're down to two. Here's what's known:

Vermilion Cliffs nest of 195F/tag 95 & 158M/no tag: Nest failed. No sign of egg, eggshell or chick to indicate at what stage it failed or why.

Vermilion Cliffs nest of experienced breeders 126F/tag 26 & 114M/no tag: First egg was broken 10 days after laying. They laid again. This nest failed after hatching should have occurred, and an unhatched egg was found in the cave.

Buddha Temple nest of 280F/tag 80 & 234F?/tag 4: Nest failed. No attempt was made to enter the cave. Still waiting on DNA results to determine the sex of #234, reported as female in the condor studbook.Salt Creek nest of 127F/tag 27 & 123M/tag 23: Chick has been confirmed! This is the same pair and the same cave that produced 305M (who later died) in 2003 and 392M in 2005. Read the full story in July's Notes From the Field. Point nest of 133F/tag 33 & 187M/tag 87: Chick strongly suspected. Although the entrance to the cave is visible from the Tonto plateau below, it's a small entrance with a bit of a lip to it making it impossible to see much inside. But as Eddie Feltes writes in his latest Notes From the Field, "...both 133F and 187M are still visiting the inside of the cave daily, always with a full crop of carrion. The visits are quick, usually only lasting a few minutes, and then they depart from the small opening." They sure sound like the parents of a chick!

Other news from AZ & UT:

According to the Notes From the Field, the majority of the condors have been up in Utah lately. Eddie Feltes writes "To date we have documented 57 different condors...foraging in the Kolob range of Southern Utah at various times in the past month. We have documented 27 different non-proffered carcasses that the condors have found and fed upon during the month of July, with the majority of these being domestic free-ranging sheep in Utah. This trend continues year after year, with more and more birds traveling the distance to Utah, and staying for several months with no need to visit the proffered feeding site that we manage in the Vermilion Cliffs." People are still seeing condors around the south rim, especially the breeding adults, but their numbers have dropped somewhat from a month ago.

Effects of the fires in Big Sur:

All birds had to be evacuated from the flight pens at Big Sur to Pinnacles National Monument, following which the empty flight pens did indeed burn along with a lot of equipment. The field house survived. All three wild chicks survived, even one formerly suspected to have been lost from its nest in a hollow redwood tree whose base was scorched by the fire! Unfortunately, two grown birds that didn't take off for the coast apparently perished in the fire, perhaps having roosted in trees that burned during the night. For more information, check out the Ventana Wildlife Society's web site. "VWS has established a Condor Emergency Fund. The costs to replace both condor facilities and all the associated gear are very significant. If you would like to help VWS rebuild, please spread the word. More information is available on their web site.

Until I know something more...

--Marker

Ms. Marker Marshall
Park Ranger--Interpretation
Grand Canyon National Park