Condor Chicks Evacuated as Wildfire
Advances on Sanctuary
• Thousands of Northern California
Blazes Move Southward with No End in Sight
It was pretty amazing. We were watching
last week’s lightning storm roll into Monterey Bay.
It had been a brutally hot day until high clouds moved in
from the West. Within minutes it turned cool and breezy. We
hiked to the top of our hill where we have a panoramic
view of the bay. The clouds were wild—one dark formation
looked like a creepy cobweb. Lightning, thunder,
wind, and a few drops of rain. Sand devils rose from the dunes
at Moss Landing.
A branched strike of lightning ignited
the Corral de Tierra fire in Carmel Valley. While small grass
fires flared up all around the Monterey Bay area, farther
south, along the coast of Big Sur, lightning ignited heavy
brush in a small rugged canyon. That fire became know as the
Gallery Fire. Since June 21, the Gallery Fire merged with the
Basin Fire in the Ventana Wilderness. Firefighters have
predicted that it will merge with the Indians
Fire—a blaze started by a campfire June 8.
Nearly 90,000 acres of wilderness have
been destroyed. In the early stages of the Gallery Fire it
was not clear whether a group of captive California
condors should be disturbed and moved from their flight
pens in a remote area, just south of Big Sur. The eight birds,
one adult male mentor and seven juveniles, are part of a
reintroduction program administrated by
the Ventana Wildlife Society.
Their secluded condor release
site is used to prepare captive-born condors for life
in the wild—acclimating them to their
surroundings and allowing them to socialize with
wild condors that visit the facility. Hoi, the adult
condor, mentors the youngsters, teaching them social
etiquette and survival skills. With only 315 California
condors in existence, fewer than half living in the
wild, these birds are invaluable to the species’
future.
By Sunday morning, the fire was
shifting directions and gaining ground. The call was made
to evacuate the condors. By that time however,
Highway 1 had been closed and all road access to the
condor santuary was shut down. The only way
they could be rescued was by helicopter. Fire
resources were spread thin tending to the near 1100 blazes in
California.
Having called upon the Coast Guard once
before for a sea lion rescue off Point Dume, I decided to give
them a jingle. Just as I’d thought, they were eager
to help if only they could find an available air crew and get
approval for the mission. I went ahead and doubled my chances
by also calling the state Office of Emergency
Services as the Coast Guard suggested. I found that they
too were willing to look into allocating resources to help
the birds. By early afternoon we received the word. It was a
go. A Coast Guard unit had been assigned to the mission, and
the Governor’s Office called with instructions
to rescue the birds from danger.
The race was on—a race against the
fire, the weather, and daylight. By 3:45 p.m., the first
leg of the operation was underway. A team of three
biologists from Ventana Wildlife Society boarded the Coast
Guard helicopter at Monterey Jet Center
airfield. They were going to be dropped off as close
to the facility as possible, hike in, confine the birds
into dog crates, and use their one ATV to transport the
animals back to the landing pad. They had four and a
half hours of daylight left.
Joe Burnett, senior wildlife biologist for
the condor program led the rescue team. Joining him was
Mike Tyner and Henry Bonifas. In over 90-degree temperature,
the young men made their way down the dirt road toward the
condors—a 2.5-mile trek. Ash floated down like
snow. The air was still and an eerie silence gripped the
canyon. The team worked quickly to capture and cage each of the
nearly 20-pound birds.
It was not easy work as the birds, with
their 9-foot wing span, could easily fly from one end of
their flight pen to the next. Once in their German
shepherd-size dog crates, the birds were carted up the
winding, craggy dirt road to the rendezvous point, two at
a time. Over three hours passed before the first group of five
condors was airlifted out of danger. They were quickly
offloaded to an awaiting vehicle that
would take them to Pinnacles National Monument to be
housed in condor enclosures there. The Wildlife Society
and Pinnacles have collaborated on condor recovery since
2003.
At day’s end, the remaining
condors and their weary rescuers landed safely out of
harm’s way, thanks to the tremendous effort by the U.S.
Coast Guard. The fire swept across the canyon two days after
the evacuation. It is still not known what, if anything,
remains of the society’s condor flight pens and research
cabin.
While the rescued condors are safely
housed at Pinnacles, attention has turned to the fate of
the wild-flying condors, including three chicks. The
condors are fitted with radio transmitters. Joe and his
team are tracking the birds daily, hoping to confirm that
all forty or so birds are still alive. At this point, one
female, Condor 222, is unaccounted for. She is the mother of
one of the chicks. Joe spotted her in a snag near the facility
as the last of the birds were evacuated. Condors, like most
diurnal birds, do not fly at night. She may have stayed
roosting as the fire advanced. As for the three chicks, we know
that two are safe in their nests. The third—its condition
is unknown. The fire burned everything around its
redwood home. We hope its old growth home protected
it from the fire and heat.
As for the facility, with luck, it
survived. If not, it will mean starting over to rebuild the
enclosures and research facility. Anyone interested in
getting involved or helping to support this program,
can contact Ventana Wildlife Society’s
executive director, Kelly Sorenson, at 831-455-9514.
