Scientists fight to save condors from lead bullets

An increasingly rare - and threatened - condor takes wing above the sanctuary in the mountains above Big Sur. An increasingly rare - and threatened - condor takes wing above the sanctuary in the mountains above Big Sur. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 29 Caption Close Scientists fight to save condors from lead bullets 1 / 29 Back to Gallery

Big Sur --

The California condor fluttered up to a perch directly in front of the scientists, turned his fleshy pink head toward the reflective window inside its pen and glared with bloodshot eyes into the observation hut.

The big black vulture, known to researchers as Phoenix because he survived a fire as a fledgling, is the heart and soul of California's ban on lead hunting ammunition, according to conservationists.

The concern among condor researchers is that the law banning hunters from using lead ammunition - signed by Gov. Jerry Brown this month - doesn't go into effect until July 2019.

The number of condor deaths from lead poisoning this year is "unprecedented," said Joe Burnett, the Big Sur condor project coordinator for the Ventana Wildlife Society, which has been leading the effort in Central California to bring back the majestic birds from near extinction.

Condors began to die off in the 19th century, many of them poisoned with the lead shot that was left by hunters in the entrails and carcasses that the birds scavenged. Condors, with splayed, finger-like wing tips and wingspans of up to 10 feet, were listed as a federally endangered species in 1967, and by 1987 there were so few left in the wild that measures had to be taken to save them.

Last 27 condors

The last 27 California condors left in the wild were captured and placed in a breeding program. The Big Sur flock is the result of that program. There are now about 60 birds and seven breeding pairs in the two flocks at Pinnacles National Park and Big Sur, all of them with VHF transmitters and about a third equipped with GPS tracking devices.

The goal is to eventually have 150 free-flying birds and 15 breeding pairs in California. The problem is that the birds cannot reproduce fast enough to make up for the numbers that are dying from lead poisoning, Burnett said.

Phoenix was one of four condors captured this past week by Ventana Wildlife Society biologists. The birds are held in a net-covered flight pen deep in the Big Sur backcountry where they are tested for lead poisoning. The sickest ones - those with lead levels high enough to require emergency treatment - have historically been taken to the Los Angeles Zoo, an arduous eight-hour drive from the Big Sur camp.

Easier trip to vet

The trip, however, just got a lot easier. The Oakland Zoo, which joined the California Condor Recovery Program in 2012, was given permission last week by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to begin treating sick birds. The zoo expects an official permit within the next few months to become the first condor treatment and rehabilitation center in the Bay Area.

The Oakland Zoo's 900-square-foot treatment center, built over the past year, will cut by two-thirds the time it now takes to transport sick birds to a veterinary facility.

The gangly birds can use all the help they can get. An average of 2 out of every 3 condors tested in the Big Sur camp have had lead levels high enough to require emergency treatment, Burnett said. That includes one bird, No. 242, which had the highest level ever recorded in a member of the flock, enough to put a human into intensive care. Another condor, which eventually died, was found with a lead slug from a .22 in its digestive tract.

Three members of the Big Sur flock are currently missing, which is usually the indication of a poisoning death. Burnett said most people don't understand that condor stomachs evolved over millennium to be highly acidic, allowing the creatures to digest bacteria and other toxins from rotten meat. Their superb digestive capabilities mean they also absorb higher concentrations of lead when they consume bullet fragments left in squirrels, rabbits and other varmints killed by farmers or in gut piles left by hunters.

Giving out copper bullets

"Lead is so toxic," said Burnett, whose crew regularly goes to ranches where the condors have been tracked and gives out boxes of copper bullets. "And condors are constantly being exposed to levels far beyond what would be considered toxic in humans."

Complicating matters, he said, is the fact that condors are highly social animals that live by hierarchical rules. Dominant birds deliberately mask sickness until it is too late to save them because they know the flock will turn on them if they show weakness. The birds, which can live as long as 60 years, do not begin breeding until they are 7 years old and then generally lay only a single egg every other year.

More getting sick

Captivity-bred condors are still being released to bolster the population, including four to be released in Big Sur within the next month, Burnett said, and many of those birds are also getting sick.

"There are no birds in the flock that don't have lead," said Burnett, as he monitored the captured condors and used a spotting scope to identify as many as 25 other condors swooping and gliding along the ridges and down the steep wooded slopes. "It's not like (lead levels in) these birds are slightly elevated. It's acute. It's saturation, and there's no doubt in our minds that the primary source is lead ammunition."

The big condor nicknamed Phoenix and known scientifically as No. 477 was given a blood test shortly after the red-eyed stare-down inside the Big Sur holding pen. The bird, who survived the 2008 Basin Complex Fire by hiding inside the cavity of a redwood tree as the inferno raged past him, tested low for lead and was released.

"We call him Phoenix because he ... keeps rising from ashes," Burnett said.