The demise of the California condor is probably a done deal because of climate change and environmental changes in the regions. Some are human caused, some are not.
Look at CA on any big satellite photo. You can see US, and US aren't condor range. Perhaps a bigger factor is that we are in a post-post glacial era.
There were many different species of condor/vulture in CA during the post-glacial era--you can see them at the La Brea Tar Pits Museum in LA. Some were even bigger than the California condor. They didn't survive the demise of the Pleistocene mega-fauna.
The California condor got a brief reprieve when the Californios replaced the mega-fauna with extremely wasteful cattle raising in the 18th and 19th century. When drought and Anglo efficiency killed that, the condor declined to near extinction. I've seen a grand total of one wild one in my outdoor life in CA, and that was in the Temblor Range in 1963, at a distance of nearly a mile.
I'm not against "getting the lead out" in general. But I'm also sure that the haste in doing it in CA is motivated as much by anti-hunter and anti-gun malice as it is by environmental concern.
We need vultures, and preserving them is worthwhile. We don't need California condors any more. Frankly, I think the money spent on trying to preserve this living fossil would be better spent on developing (especially rimfire) nonlead bullets that the average shooter can afford. And that will actually hit what he aims at!
Nicely done, Mike. Few people understand the reasons for survival of this Pleistocene relic to the current day. The Spanish/Mexican range cattle filled a lot of condor bellies during the 18th and 19th centuries.
The lead ban has passed the legislature and is being phased in. I live in one of the most desirable communities in California, I am a native Californian, but by the total phase in date, I will be living on Southern Arizona…
