Last fall, a wildfire raged across the scenic Big Sur coast, taking a major toll on one of America’s most high-profile projects to bring back endangered wildlife. The Dolan Fire killed 11 California condors and destroyed a research building, pens and other facilities that scientists had used to restore populations of the massive birds over the past 24 years.
But from the ashes an inspiring renewal is unfolding. A female condor named Redwood Queen has laid an egg in the top of a charred redwood tree that flames blackened in August. Her mate, a bird named Kingpin, died in the fire. But she has found another. Her return to the burned Big Sur landscape, and the new egg — which is set to hatch April 24 — is giving scientists and condor lovers new hope as spring arrives.
“These birds aren’t giving up. Neither are we,” said Kelly Sorenson, executive director of the Ventana Wildlife Society, a nonprofit group in Monterey that helps lead efforts to restore condors.
Redwood Queen, who is 23 years old, laid the egg at the end of February. The nest sits in the cavity of a charred redwood tree about 60 feet above the ground in a remote location biologists keep secret in order to protect it.
“We all have a really strong sense of home. Animals do too,” said Colleen Kinzley, vice president of animal care, conservation and research at the Oakland Zoo. “That is her home. Going back and laying an egg there makes sense from a biological standpoint. It’s a place of security for her even though this bad thing happened.”
A year ago, Redwood Queen laid an egg in the same tree. It hatched into a chick. That bird, named Iniko, was being monitored by a remote camera when the flames approached. As the fire advanced, the parents fled. The four-month-old chick was feared lost.
“When the fire burned through it was really scary,” Sorenson said. “You could hear the crackling of the flames, and then the cord of the camera melted, and the picture went dead. People were worried for weeks.”
But when biologists returned, they found the chick still in the nest.
“Iniko just stayed in the tree cavity and survived,” Sorenson said. “If she would have jumped out he would have perished.”
The chick had a limp, however, and was moved to the Los Angeles Zoo out of an abundance of caution. She is scheduled to be released again into the wild later this year.
Other condors weren’t as lucky. Altogether, nine adults and two chicks died in the Dolan Fire, leaving the population of condors in Central California at 90, which includes birds along the coast and inland at Pinnacles National Park.
The fire also destroyed the release pens, research building, water tanks and solar power system at the Ventana Wildlife Society’s 80-acre facility in Big Sur. The group has so far raised $640,000 to rebuild it. Plans are being drawn up, and Sorenson said they hope to break ground by the end of this year.
“It will be bigger and nicer,” he said. “We will be able to do more work and release more condors.”
The recovery of California condors has been one of America’s greatest wildlife success stories.
The vulture-like birds have the largest wingspan of any bird in North America — up to 9 feet.
They once ranged from British Columbia to Mexico. But because of habitat loss, hunting and lead poisoning from eating dead deer and other animals containing hunters’ bullet fragments, the majestic birds reached a low of just 22 nationwide by the early 1980s.
In a desperate gamble to stave off extinction, federal biologists captured all remaining wild condors in 1987 and began breeding them in the Los Angeles Zoo, San Diego Zoo and other facilities. The birds’ offspring have been gradually released back to the wild. The first condors in modern times to be born in the wild hatched in 2007. Every year on the Central Coast, about five to 10 eggs are laid. And about half survive.
Today the California condor population has grown to 504. Of those, 329 are in the wild, with 186 in California, 103 in Arizona around the Grand Canyon, and 40 in Baja Mexico. The remaining 175 live in captivity, including two males at the Oakland Zoo.
The Dolan Fire was a major setback to the species’ slow but steady recovery. The blaze began Aug. 18 in the Ventana Wilderness of the Los Padres National Forest, eventually burning 128,000 acres — an area four times the size of the city of San Francisco — across dry, steep terrain.
Since then, however, the program and the birds are bouncing back. Redwood Queen found a new mate, named Phoenix, who also survived a fire in 2008 as a chick, earning him his name. Toward the end of last year, the Ventana Wildlife Society released nine condors around San Simeon.
“Fire is a necessary part of our landscape,” Kinzley said. “Wildlife adapt. It can be challenging, but on the whole, these animals have evolved in this environment and there is renewal that comes after a fire.”
The main threat to condors remains lead poisoning, Sorenson noted. Even though former Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law phasing out lead bullets in hunting, not all hunters use copper and it is still hard to get. When hunters shoot deer or other animals and then leave parts behind, condors, bald eagles and other wildlife can develop lead poisoning by eating the dead animal later. The Oakland Zoo has a facility that x-rays condors and removes lead from their systems.
Sorenson said the new egg shows the tenacity of a species that has survived so much after coming so close to extinction.
“They are resilient,” he said. “Their habitat isn’t destroyed. It’s still there. They are still using the same trees. They aren’t going anywhere.”
