U.S. Flagship Endangered Species Recovery Program in Peril

California condors were so close to extinction in the mid-1980s that the last 22 wild condors were captured and an expensive captive-breeding program was initiated. Remarkably, condors have proven adept at breeding in captivity, and the captive population was healthy enough by the mid-1990s to begin releasing condors back into the wild. There are currently almost one hundred condors in the wild, with more being added by the still-active captive breeding program every year, and hopes are high for the first survival of wild-hatched chicks since reintroduction began. The goal of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service's condor recovery program is to restore at least two self-sustaining wild populations of 150 or more condors each.

Yet the condor still hovers on the brink of extinction. The last wild condors were brought into captivity because of the high risks they faced in the wild, particularly due to lead poisoning from scavenging hunter-killed carcasses. Reintroduced condors face a variety of threats, including habitat loss, oil and gas drilling activities, lead poisoning, shooting, and collisions with power lines.

Lead Poisoning - An Unaddressed Threat

Lead poisoning, if not corrected, could negate the efforts of the condor reintroduction and recovery program. There is overwhelming evidence that the lead poisoning condors is coming from bullets and shot used in hunting and plinking. Condors scavenge carrion left by hunters, which often contains small fragments of lead. Since condors seek out bone fragments in carrion to obtain calcium, they often mistake bullet fragments for the calcium-rich bones they require. Condors have a high sensitivity to lead since, unlike other birds of prey, they do not tend to regurgitate foreign objects and keep bullet fragments in their system much longer, and they also absorb lead more quickly and excrete it less efficiently.

Released condors are regularly captured to have their blood lead levels checked, and birds often need to undergo intrusive chemical chelation therapy to reduce dangerously high lead levels. Released condors are regularly fed, with the hopes that they won't actively forage for carrion that might contain lead. Condors remain completely dependent for their survival on an expensive, intrusive, and unsustainable de-leading program that has admirably saved many condors' lives but has failed to address the cause of their imperilment. As successful as the recovery efforts have been for the condor, they are being released back into a landscape with the same threats that led to their near extinction. Without addressing these threats, the nation's most intensive and costly endangered species recovery effort could quite possibly go to waste. The condor continues to face likely extinction due to lead poisoning, especially if intense human intervention efforts ever cease.

Getting the Lead Out

There is universal agreement that lead must be removed from the condors' diet and that without controlling the presence of lead in bullets and shot in condor habitat the condor faces an extremely difficult road to recovery. This opinion was expressed in a 2003 report by wildlife biologists, conservationists, game managers, and hunting and gun advocates. A California Department of Fish and Game study, Assessment of Lead Contamination Sources Exposing California Condors, came to the same conclusion.

The condor's attraction to lead ammunition-killed carrion and gut piles, its attraction to the bullets and shot pellets themselves as possible bone fragments containing calcium, its inability to regurgitate the lead fragments once ingested, its increased susceptibility to lead poisoning, and its slow reproductive rate are all factors that have conspired in the condor's near extinction. We cannot control the peculiarities of the biology of the condor, but we can control the presence of the lead ammunition.

Alternatives to Lead Ammunition

Banning lead ammunition does not mean banning hunting or shooting, as alternative lead-free bullets and shot are now available. 100% copper bullets are currently available in almost every caliber, while bullets made of tin, tungsten, and bismuth (TTB) should be available soon. Both the newest copper bullets and TTB bullets perform as well as, if not better than, lead bullets for hunting and are non-toxic.

Lead-free shot is plentiful, having been mandated for use in waterfowl hunting since 1991.

The U.S. Military has initiated its own conversion to lead-free ammunition, which promises to lower their price substantially and increase interest in their development. While these developments are promising, the condor cannot wait for the gradual phase-out of lead ammunition: the use of lead-free ammunition must be mandated immediately in condor habitat.