[obol] Bend June 21 - Oregon Condor's Birder's night topic

[Marilyn Miller]

Hi Obol:  You do not want to miss this!  Central Oregon Audubon Society and
The East Cascades Bird Conservancy will host the following guest speaker.

 

Tony Veechio from the Oregon Zoo will be the guest speaker on the Thursday,
June 21st.  Birder's night is held in downtown Bend at the Central Oregon
Environmental Center.

 

 The topic will be the captive breeding program of California condors at the
zoo.

 

This was be a fascinating, interesting and informative topic.  Condors used
to be native to Oregon, maybe they will be again some day!

 

I have pasted below a little information on the Oregon Zoo Condor Chick

Marilyn Miller

 

 

June 1, 2007
OREGON ZOO CONDOR CHICK NEEDS A LITTLE HELP TO HATCH Keepers, zoo vet assist
in hatching third, and final, condor chick of 2007 PORTLAND, Ore. --
Seventy-two hours is all the time a California condor chick should need to
hatch out of its shell. Unfortunately, that deadline came and went for this
season's last chick at the Oregon Zoo's Jonsson Center for Wildlife
Conservation. At 72 hours, the chick had made only a nickel-sized hole in
its shell, far too small for it to emerge. Keepers were forced to step in
and help, a worst-case scenario for them.

"We decided to intervene for fear that, if we didn't, the chick would not
have been able to rotate and might have died in its shell," said Shawn St.
Michael, condor curator. "We really don't like to intervene in the hatching,
because we much prefer having the parents raise the chick."

The chick was removed from the nesting room and immediately transferred to
an indoor facility, where keepers, along with the zoo's lead veterinarian,
Mitch Finnegan, broke away part of the shell and removed the chick.

"The assist-hatching went very smoothly," said St. Michael. "The chick was
in the correct position for hatching but was simply unable to rotate and
self-hatch."

St. Michael added that "the egg membrane looked as though it had dried and
adhered to the chick's shoulders and may have prevented it from rotating and
breaking free of the shell."

The chick will be puppet-reared by human foster parents and later mentored
by another adult California condor. Though keepers would have preferred to
return the chick to its parents, Woy and Wiloq, their behavior throughout
incubation and hatching made that too risky.

Puppet rearing allows keepers to foster chicks while limiting human contact.
The process has become more and more routine in zoos and other conservation
centers.

"Endangered whooping cranes, peregrine falcons and California condors have
been puppet-reared for years, so the protocols are pretty clearly
established," said St. Michael.

The new condor chick is doing well, according to keepers. By the morning
after its assisted hatching, it had already enthusiastically taken two
feedings. Keepers will continue to monitor the chick closely for any
problems and will vaccinate it against West Nile Virus in a month.

The egg had been laid April 2 and was left with the parents for two weeks to
incubate naturally. Keepers then carefully removed the egg to check its
viability. It remained in an incubator for about seven weeks until it pipped
externally on May 27.

Keepers then returned the egg to Woy and Wiloq that afternoon, switching it
with the "dummy" egg the parents had been sitting on. Thursday morning, when
the chick still had not hatched and the 72-hour deadline approached, keepers
prepared to assist hatch. The egg was removed from the nesting room at 2
p.m. on May 30.

Woy and Wiloq have yet to a raise a chick, even though this egg was the
fourth to have been produced by the pair. Their first egg was sent to San
Diego, because it was cracked upon laying. The pair's second egg also needed
assistance during hatching, and the chick was puppet-reared.

Wiloq's first egg this season -- her third overall -- was infertile, so
keepers "double-clutched" her, removing the first egg in hopes she would lay
another. The process worked, and Wiloq laid a second egg, which eventually
produced the newest chick.

The new chick is part of a record year for Oregon Zoo condors: An
unprecedented seven eggs have been laid, including two eggs by pairs who had
never produced before. Unfortunately, an abundance of eggs doesn't guarantee
an abundance of chicks.

This season, three eggs were infertile and a fourth proved to be unviable
partway through incubation. The low fertility is likely due to the number of
young females in the program. California condors don't reach sexual maturity
until about 5 to 7 years of age.

The condor recovery goal is to establish a captive population of 150 birds
and two separate wild populations of condors, one in California and the
other in Arizona. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California
Condor Recovery Program coordinate and implement the recovery program and
provide oversight of all program partners.

The zoo's condor recovery efforts take place at the Jonsson Center for
Wildlife Conservation, located in Clackamas County on Metro-owned open
space. The remoteness of the facility minimizes the exposure of young
condors to people, increasing the chances for captive-hatched birds to
survive and breed in the wild. Funding for the Oregon Zoo's California
Condor Recovery Program comes in part from a grant from The Kenneth A. Scott
Charitable Trust, a KeyBank Trust.

The Jonsson Center is currently home to 17 adult condors. The seven eggs
this season make a total of 15 since the Jonsson center was established,
and, with this week's assisted hatch, nine chicks have been produced.

Condors, the largest land birds in North America, have wingspans of up to 10
feet and weigh 18 to 30 pounds. They are highly intelligent and inquisitive,
often engaging in play. Their range extended across much of North America
during the Pleistocene Era, which ended about 10,000 years ago. By 1940,
that range had been reduced to the coastal mountains of Southern California,
and in 1967 condors were added to the first federal list of endangered
species. In 1987, the 17 condors remaining in the wild were brought into
captivity and a captive-breeding program was developed.

In 2001, the Oregon Zoo became the third zoo in the nation to join the
California Condor Recovery Program. California condor captive-breeding
programs are also operated at San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park, the Los
Angeles Zoo and the Peregrine Fund's World Center for Birds of Prey. The
Oregon Zoo was the recipient of the Wildlife Society's Conservation Award
for "creating the nation's fourth California condor breeding facility" in
April 2005.

For more information about the Oregon Zoo's California condors, visit
http://www.oregonzoo.org/Condors/index.htm

 

 

 

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