The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced May 19 that a California condor chick had hatched online via live Condor Cam stream.
The Condor Cam from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Santa Barbara Zoo in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service captured a new condor pair nesting in Toms Canyon in Ventura County, according to a news release from the FWS.
On May 14 at 5:42 a.m. Pacific time, viewers around the world got a real-time look at a hard-won conservation success story with a first sighting of a freshly hatched condor chick.
“By providing a virtual window into the natural world of condors, livestream cams foster important connections between people and wildlife,” said Charles Eldermire, the Cornell Lab Bird Cams project leader, according to the release. “This is an incredible opportunity to watch an active experience unfolding in real time, and it increases community engagement with these powerful birds. We’re hopeful that this will help to spread awareness about the fascinating lives of condors and the challenges they face in the wild.”
The California condor is a critically endangered species, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and became temporarily extinct in the wild in 1987. With a gliding capability of 55 mph, the California condor hunts for dead animals for its food. When condors nest they typically only raise one chick at a time.
According to the release, the biggest threat to California condors is lead poisoning, which is caused by condors feeding on carcasses that contain lead bullet fragments.
The release states that another threat is “micro trash,” or small coin-size trash items like nuts, bolts, washers, copper wire, plastic, glass and ammunition cartridges. The release states that condor parents retrieve these items then feed them to their chicks. This can cause serious problems with the development of the chick.
According to All About Birds, a condor chick was recently seen playing with a bottle cap in the Hutton Nest on May 20.
The FWS encourages readers to practice the “Leave No Trace” practice when camping or enjoying the outdoors to help reduce the threat to California condors, according to the release.
