Groups that keep track of the California condor reintroduction program are encouraged by what they’re seeing.
A record four birds hatched near the Arizona-Utah border last year, and this year there’s a chance a condor hatched in the wild will produce the first second-generation wild bird.
Members of the Peregrine Fund say they’re keeping their fingers cross for that possibility. Breeding for the condors in Arizona and Utah is underway, both in the wild and for the captive flock at the Peregrine Fund’s World Center for birds, in Boise, Idaho.
Biologists are watching from a distance as the adult condors incubate an egg at the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument on the Arizona-Utah border.
The captive flock is expected to produce up to 20 birds this season.