I took these photos earlier this month at Taronga Zoo. This juvenile condor is part of the captive breeding program there, and these shots were taken while she performed in the famous Free Flight Bird Show.
As people have settled farther into the condor’s territory, they have replaced its accustomed food sources — the remains of deer and other small mammals — with domesticated animals. As soon as they adapted to feed on dead and wounded livestock, farmers started moving their animals from open fields to feedlots, which the condors cannot infiltrate, and even hunting the birds outright.
Source: EarthNews
These long-lived birds have survived over 75 years in captivity, but they reproduce slowly. A mating pair produces only a single offspring every other year, and both parents must care for their young for a full year.
Source: National Geographic
Wonderful photos. They are amazing and I’m so glad they get the chance to fly.
I’ve been lucky to see Californian Condors soaring over the Grand Canyon. My pictures don’t do them justice. The success story of their comeback is remarkable. Went to a talk about them and how the Condor group is working with hunters and farmers to start using non lead bullets because the Condors and other critters eat the gut pile of shot Elk and Deer and get lead poisoning, which is a big cause of death.
Jane Goodall’s new book ‘ Hope For Animals And Their World’ has a great chapter on it.
This juvenile gets to fly free because she’s been hand-reared and well-trained. The adults are still in the enclosure, but at least Taronga keeps on building bigger and better aviaries.
I was so happy to see that the macaws have been moved to a much larger enclosure now too – I get a kick out of thinking that I’m talking to at least one bird that my mum talked to when she was a little girl (we have a photo of her big sister taking her to the zoo with Mum all gussied up with Shirley Temple curls). Heck, the oldest macaw at Taronga could have been talked to by my granthers! (I even had one of them talk back to me once, on a grey and quieter than usual day – sie must have been bored.)