How hunters can help the California condor return

The California condor is the largest flying land bird in North America. What he lacks in appearance he makes up for in majesty. Its nine-and-a-half-foot wingspan leaves quite an impression if you’re lucky enough to see one… or 20.

That scene in Tehachapi last May, when Cinda Michols returned home to find 15-20 condors had come down to her house, would have been unthinkable just three decades ago. At the time, there was no longer a single condor in the wild.

In the late 1980s, the last surviving California condors were brought into captivity to save the species from extinction. Since then, vultures have been bred and slowly reintroduced into the wild. There are now over 500 in total – a number that is still small enough that biologists are still counting them all.

Chris Parish, director of global conservation at the Peregrine Fund, showed correspondent Conor Knighton a whiteboard of “retired” numbers: “They’re all here for a reason, and this isn’t a place you want yours to be. number, because birds have passed by. “

While the reappearance of condors in our skies is certainly successful, endangered birds are still struggling. Researchers have come to understand why. According to Parish, “Fifty-four percent of all deaths in our population that we monitor intensively are lead poisoning.”

Lead is a dangerous neurotoxin; this is also what most ammunition is made of. Birds die of bullets. they don’t get shoot by them; they are literally while eating drive.

“In scavengers that are obligated, like the condor, they only consume things that are already dead,” Parish said.

Here’s the problem: When hunters kill an animal, like a deer, they often leave some of the remains behind. But they can unintentionally leave behind tiny fragments of lead, which end up in condors as they pass by to enjoy a meal.

“Some of these tiny fragments that come loose from the bullets we’ve been using for 100 years can poison wildlife,” Parish said.

In Marble Canyon, Arizona, the Parish team traps and tests condors. Most have detectable lead levels. So they treat the birds and then release them once they are healthy.

Knighton asked, “Right now you’re trapping them, testing them, treating them, releasing them, but it looks like it will happen again and again, unless the ammo changes?” “

“We are in a pattern of waiting,” Parish replied. “We have come to a very good understanding of the problem and we know how to solve it. Now we have to go and solve it.”

But solving this problem may seem like a long time.

Parish’s mission is to convince hunters to hunt with unleaded ammunition, like copper bullets, by staging protests across the country. It’s a world he knows well: “I’m kind of a redneck hunter-biologist, and these hunters are my people.”

Unfortunately, copper ammunition is generally more expensive, harder to find, and just not what people are used to.

“Changing the tradition is difficult,” Parish said. “It’s not as simple as ‘Here’s the science, here’s the logic, so do the right thing.’ We don’t live in that time anymore, you know?

“And the people who sell the products are very effective at marketing. People who work in conservation, we’re not really good at marketing!

In 2019, California instituted a statewide ban on lead ammunition for hunting. But the California condor is also found in Utah and Arizona, states where there is no ban.

Parish doesn’t think a legislative solution is the answer, “We have a speed limit, but people break that law too. And I’m not saying hunters are a bunch of bad actors; I’m just saying if they do. ne “I don’t understand it, they might just regard it as unnecessary legislation that really isn’t a problem.”

“It seems like a very difficult law to enforce when you’re in the woods,” Knighton said.

“It’s almost impossible.”

Instead, the parish promotes a voluntary approach. He co-founded the North American Non-Lead Partnership to reach out to hunters. The response so far has been encouraging: An estimated 90% of deer hunters on the Kaibab Plateau in Arizona now hunt lead-free or pack all leftovers.

“We know that only hunters can solve this problem,” Parish said. “So pointing them at them and saying, ‘You are doing a bad thing’, it won’t work. You have to appeal to their conservation ethic and their conservation story, saying, ‘Here is yet another opportunity. where we as hunters can leave a healthier environment for all creatures that live there, not just those we hunt, for the enjoyment of future generations. ‘”

Someday, Parish hopes hunters across the country shoot alternate ammunition to protect all scavenging animals. Until then, he will continue to spread the word, to help get the thread out.

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Publisher: Emanuele Secci.

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