The Bureau of Land Management and Peregrine Fund are set to release four captive-bred California condors into the wild from the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument on National Public Lands Day, which is this Saturday.
This partnership spans several state, federal and tribal collaborators, including the Grand Canyon and Zion national parks to the Kaibab and Dixie national forests.
Arizona Game and Fish Department and Utah Division of Wildlife Resources are also helping bring this endangered species back from the brink alongside the Navajo Nation and Kaibab Paiute Tribe.
Lead poisoning is the leading cause of death for California condors. They consume the toxic heavy metal that’s introduced into their environment by the ammo that hunters often use.
Mule deer is the most popular animal that Kaibab Paiutes hunt.
Kaibab Paiute Wildlife Director Bruce Benson explained that tribal members will drive to St. George, Utah — a 40-mile trip each way.
“Before we start hunting, which is in October,” Benson said, “we’ll get some vouchers to get our non-lead bullets through Sportsman’s Warehouse.”
These vouchers discount non-lead ammo, often made of copper. Otherwise, Benson said the lead is “gonna drizzle down to the other animals that eat the guts.”
His remote reservation spans across some 120,000 acres along the Arizona Strip and between Coconino and Mohave counties. It’s located about 50 miles north of the Grand Canyon, which is where the California condors have called home since the Pleistocene Era that ended more than 10,000 years ago.
“We’ve been having some contact inside the reservation,” said Benson. “Back in February, a condor passed away up on the cliff. We actually hiked and retrieved the body, and I think it’s kinda sad to see. You wonder how they died.”
There were only 22 condors in 1982, but now there are more than 500 birds worldwide, with more than half flying free in Arizona, Utah, California and Mexico.
But last year marked the first time since 1996 when California condors weren’t released from the Vermillion Cliffs due to an avian flu outbreak. It killed 21 condors in the Utah-Arizona flock; only 85 condors are left.
A condor nestling called Milagra, a Spanish name for miracle, was rescued after her mother died from HPAI, or the highly pathogenic avian influenza. She hatched at the Phoenix nonprofit Liberty Wildlife before being transferred to the Peregrine Fund’s propagation facility at the World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho.
Milagra is among the California condors are scheduled to be released on Saturday, Sept. 28.
