Question

**Respond must be a minimum of 400 words**

For your initial post, do some research into endangered and threatened species in the United States, especially those in your area. Pick a species you find interesting and respond to the following prompts:

1. Describe the life history of the species you chose, focusing on those habits or factors which have contributed most to its decline.

2. What is being done to protect the species under the Endangered Species Act? Is there any evidence that these measures have been helpful to species recovery so far?

3. Do you think this species is likely to recover in the future? Why/why not?

Answer 1

California Condor:

The California condor (Gymnogyps californianus) is a New World vulture, the biggest North American land fledgling. It got wiped out in the wild in 1987 (all staying wild people were caught), however, has since been reintroduced to northern Arizona and southern Utah (counting the Grand Canyon region and Zion National Park), the beachfront heaps of focal and southern California, and northern Baja California. Albeit other fossil individuals are known, it is the main enduring individual from the class Gymnogyps. The species is recorded by the IUCN as critically endangered.

1. Describe the life history of the species you chose, focusing on those habits or factors which have contributed most to its decline?

COMMON NAME: California Condor

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Gymnogyps californianus

TYPE: Birds

DIET: Carnivore

AVERAGE LIFE SPAN IN THE WILD: Up to 60 years

SIZE: Body: 3.5 to 4.5 feet; wingspan: 9 to 10 feet

WEIGHT: 18 to 31 pounds

Historic Range:

At the hour of human settlement of the Americas, the California condor was far-reaching across North America; condor bones from the Late Pleistocene have been found at the Cutler Fossil Site in southern Florida.[32] However, toward the finish of the last icy time frame came the annihilation of the megafauna that prompted a resulting decrease in range and populace. 500 years prior, the California condor wandered over the American Southwest and West Coast. Faunal stays of condors have been discovered archived in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas. The Lewis and Clark Expedition of the mid-nineteenth century gave an account of their locating and shooting of California condors close to the mouth of the Columbia River

DESCRIPTION: The largest flying land birds in North America, California condors weigh about 20 pounds and have wingspans around 9.5 feet. They have bare, orange heads and necks, grayish-black feathers, and blunt claws; a white bar is found on the upper surface of each wing, and a triangle-shaped white patch is visible on the underside of each wing when the bird is airborne.

HABITAT: For scavenging, condors need large areas of a remote country. They prefer open grasslands and oak savannah foothills and live near mountains, canyons, or hillsides, roosting in tall trees or isolated cliffs and rocky outcrops. Eggs are laid in shallow caves and rocky crevices.

RANGE: Having once flown free throughout the western United States, most condors today are born in captivity and released in southern and central California, northern Arizona, southern Utah, and Baja California, Mexico.

MIGRATION: California condors are nonmigratory but will travel long distances to forage and can easily travel more than 100 miles in a day.

BREEDING: California condors don't reach sexual maturity till they're six years old, and may not start breeding until they're seven or eight. They mate for life, generally producing one egg every two years between February and May.

LIFE CYCLE: It takes almost two months for an egg to incubate and hatch; chicks do not begin flying for five or six months afterward. Upon leaving the nest, the young often remain dependent on their parents until the next breeding season.

FEEDING: Condors feed exclusively on carrion, favoring deer, cattle, sheep, and even marine mammals, but often settling for rodents, rabbits, or fish. Each bird needs about two pounds of food a day, but after gorging, condors can store energy as fat and go days without eating. Lacking a good sense of smell, the birds rely on their excellent eyesight to find their meals.

THREATS: California condors face many grave threats in the wild, including habitat loss, oil and gas drilling, shooting, and collision with power lines. The birds are constantly contracting lead poisoning from bullet-killed carcasses they scavenge and must be regularly recaptured for monitoring and lead-poisoning treatment.

POPULATION TREND: The California condor population rose from nine condors in the wild in 1985 to more than 169 free-flying condors at the outset of 2009.

OF SPECIAL INTEREST: While most people think of scavengers as dirty, condors are more fastidious about their hygiene than many treehuggers. After feeding, the birds clean their heads by rubbing them on grass, trees, or rocks; they bathe their whole bodies often and spend hours communally preening and drying their feathers.

2. What is being done to protect the species under the Endangered Species Act? Is there any evidence that these measures have been helpful to species recovery so far?

The California condor has been protected as an endangered species by federal law since 1967 and by California state law since 1971.

During the 1970s, scientists found that lone two or three dozen condors stayed in nature. In 1980, a significant protection venture was begun to attempt to shield the winged creatures from getting wiped out. Numerous uncommon investigations were made. Radio transmitters were put on the wings of a portion of the condors. Wild eggs were gathered and incubated at the Los Angeles Zoo and San Diego Wild Animal Park, and this assisted with expanding the populace. A couple of feathered creatures were taken to the zoos for hostage rearing. Be that as it may, this assistance came past the point where it is possible to stop the decrease in the wild winged animal populace, so in the mid-1980s the entirety of the rest of the condors in the wild was caught and taken to zoos.

It was trusted that by raising youthful condors and discharging them to the wild, the species would be given another opportunity. Be that as it may, no one knew without a doubt whether hostage reproducing would be effective. It didn't take long to discover.

The principal condor chick brought forth out in 1988. Inside a couple of years, unmistakably hostage reproducing was working. The hostage condors had delivered in excess of 100 eggs by 1994. Almost 20 chicks bring forth every year at the four hostage rearing focuses. The all-out populace developed from 27 winged creatures in 1987 to 161 feathered creatures by mid-1999. Starting in 2016, the absolute populace is 446.

Hostage reared condors have been discharged in focal California (incorporates discharge destinations in the Big Sur territory and Pinnacles National Park), southern California, Arizona, and Baja, Mexico. The Arizona populace has ventured into Utah.

Pieces of evidence:

This effort is directed toward developing two distinct reproducing populations in the wild and one in captivity, with at least 150 individuals in each. Until then, the condor population would still be in danger of extinction. It will take many years before we will know whether the condor population will be able to survive

In 1979, when there were 25 to 35 condors in the wild and one in imprisonment, a Cooperative California Condor Conservation Program was shaped.

From 1980 to 1987, field examinations and the board programs were embraced, including radio telemetry investigations of winged creatures and hostage brooding of wild-gathered eggs.

In 1987, the last wild condor was expelled from the wild, and every one of the 27 condors left on the planet was being kept in rearing offices at the Los Angeles Zoo and the San Diego Wild Animal Park.

In 1988, the primary California condor chick brought forth in bondage.

From 1989 to 1991, female Andean condors were discharged and concentrated to evaluate reintroduction strategies.

In 1992, two of the hostage reared California condors were discharged in Ventura County, California, five years after the last wild winged animals had been caught.

In 1993, a third condor rearing focus was set up at the World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho.

By 1994, the hostage condors had laid in excess of 100 eggs.

In 2003, a fourth condor reproducing focus was set up at the Oregon Zoo's Jonsson Center for Wildlife Conservation in Clackamas County Oregon.

Discharges were embraced in Santa Barbara County, CA, starting in late 1993; in San Luis Obispo County, CA, in mid-1996; in northern Arizona starting in late 1996, and in Monterey County, CA, starting in 1997, Baja Mexico in 2002, and San Benito County in 2003.

Extra discharge site was included; along the Big Sur coastline in 1997; in Pinnacles National Monument in 2003; in Arizona close to Grand Canyon National Park in 1996; and in Baja California, Mexico in Sierra San Pedro de Martir National Park in 2002.

The first settling in quite a while by free-flying condors in over 100 years was recorded in 2006. A Big Sur condor pair was found settling in the wore out cavity of a Coast Redwood tree.

The condor populace (wild and hostage) has consistently expanded, coming to more than 460 out of 2017 (with 170 wild condors in California)

3. Do you think this species is likely to recover in the future? Why/why not?

The California condor is currently classified as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List. The California Condor Recovery Plan, written by the California Condor Recovery Team, states that before reclassification to threatened status can occur, three disjunct populations of California condors are needed, numbering at least 150 birds each: two in the wild and one in captivity, and each population should have approximately 15 breeding pairs and have a positive rate of increase. At this writing (data from the end of August 2014), 232 birds currently fly in the wild: 130 in California; 29 in Baja, California; and 73 in Arizona/Utah. In addition, 202 birds are in captivity, and the populations continue to increase, now with second-generation wild birds fledging.

This program taught me the definition of success through teamwork and true scientific collaboration. As the program grew because of success, it also became extremely complex, with debates among individuals and organizations commonplace. The veterinary problems this species has suffered have been extreme, and without conquering them, recovery could not have occurred. Many determined and dedicated people have fought as hard as the condors themselves, not giving up when others said it was impossible or too expensive. We wondered how we could give up when our species caused the decline of this magnificent creature that has been here since the Pleistocene, and who is certainly not giving up. The people of this incredible program will continue to stand on the shoulders of our predecessors, just as the birds alive now stand on the wings of the dead condors before them. As the veterinary part of this effort, we continue to soldier on to bring the California condor to a place of full recovery where our drastic interventions are no longer needed.