The California condor flies again in the skies of Mexico. This species, which had been considered extinct in Mexican territory since 1939, has been rescued thanks to a joint effort between Mexican and American authorities and experts. The National Commission of Protected Natural Areas (Conanp) announced the release in mid-May of six specimens of this condor in the Sierra de San Pedro Mártir National Park, in the Baja California Peninsula, with which environmentalists estimate that there are already 42 individuals who fly free in Mexico.
The rescue of the condor has been given with the work promoted by experts of the United States-Mexico Program for the Recovery of the California Condor, an initiative that has allowed the release of these birds. Of the six released in May, four of them were under protection at the Chapultepec Zoo, and two more at the San Diego Zoo, in the United States, Conanp reported in a statement. “Additionally, two more specimens, born in 2022, will be transferred to the Sierra de San Pedro Mártir National Park,” reports from that institution. This region of the California Peninsula is the only habitat where the population of this species lives in Mexico.
The California condor was considered extinct in Mexico in 1939, due to various reasons, including the destruction of its habitat. Conanp experts have explained that in 1980 the environmental authorities of the United States registered a reduced population of the bird in the valleys of California, with which they made the decision to capture several specimens to try to reproduce them and reintroduce them into their natural space, which is the entire area of California and Baja California. “In 1987, the reproduction of the species was successfully achieved and its subsequent release into the wild in the State of California”, reports from Conanp. The US authorities worked two decades later with the Mexican authorities to introduce the bird into Mexico. It was in 2002 when they made the first liberation in the Sierra de San Pedro Mártir. “In the following years, the release of condor specimens born under human care continued, and a few years after being released, the species began to reproduce in the wild. By 2020, there were already more than 20 California condors. Currently, there is a free-living population of approximately 42 individuals”, the experts explain.
Much of the effort to reproduce the California condor in Mexico under human care has been in the hands of researchers from the Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City, who have developed outreach programs about this species. This is the only place in the country where the reproduction of the species has been achieved, with the birth of 11 condors since 2007.
The bird is one of the endangered species in Mexico that the authorities are trying to protect, as is the case with the vaquita, an inhabitant of the Gulf of California, which is on the verge of disappearing. A group of scientists have celebrated this week the sighting of at least 13 individuals of these cetaceans, the largest population found in the Gulf of California since 2021, when only eight vaquitas were recorded.
The California condor is considered the largest bird in North America, with a wingspan of up to three meters and an estimated weight of up to 11 kilograms. From beak to tail, a specimen can measure up to 120 centimeters in length. These birds are part of the vulture family and feed on the carrion of terrestrial and marine mammals. “The work that has been done with the California condor is an example of the success that a multi-institutional collaboration project can achieve for the recovery of an endangered species,” they say from Conanp, which celebrates that this species crosses again the Mexican skies.
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