BIRD-BRAINED CONDORS LOSING FEAR OF PEOPLE.

Byline: Marni McEntee Daily News Staff Writer

Some birds just never learn.

Despite efforts to instill fear and loathing of humans in California condors, the trappings of mankind have proven irresistible - including Merlin Bruner's backyard pond.

``We had six of them one day and 10 of them the next weekend,'' said Bruner, who looked out the window of his home outside Tehachapi in July to find a bevy of the hulking black birds.

``They stayed the first time for about 2-1/2 hours and cleaned out the frog pond. Every frog that was up there was devoured,'' Bruner said.

``And I didn't know we had a snake, but they were fighting over it. The winner just sucked that thing down like a piece of spaghetti.''

This from the endangered species that foiled a 1992 release program in Ventura County because four birds had fatal collisions with power lines and one drank a lethal dose of antifreeze.

That forced scientists to move to the more remote Santa Barbara County site. But it wasn't long before a few of those condors starting hanging out at the Burger Barn in Cuyama.

That's when biologists brought in all the birds and started a human-aversion program at condor rearing facilities - including the Los Angeles Zoo - that literally made the birds regurgitate at the sight of humans.

All 17 of the condors now making themselves at home in populated areas are graduates of the bird boot camp, said David Clenenden, a wildlife biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

But condors, unlike elephants, are a forgetful lot, and the memory of the hazing seems to have dimmed in their bird brains.

Now, he expects that the hazing program in which zoo keepers try to scare the wits out of captive condors will be abandoned.

``It didn't work well,'' Clenenden said.

Bruner's back yard isn't the only happening condor haunt around Tehachapi.

In recent weeks, groups of the birds whose beaks are designed for tearing into animal carcasses are blamed for ripping out the innards of an air conditioner, then roosting on a nearby chimney for the night.

They've been spotted playing with a garden hose and foam rubber in another back yard, cruising campgrounds and circling near a Frazier Park brush fire as water-dropping helicopters flew below.

And a few of the condors absorbed some nasty microwaves when they perched on a U.S. Air Force radar station on Black Mountain, just outside Tehachapi.

The Air Force and aviation regulators plastered the radar dish with anti-perch spikes.

``Condors do not have a natural fear of people. Even with the old wild birds there were a lot of incidents where people were close to them,'' Clenenden said. ``They're very curious, very intelligent birds. Their nature can be their own worst enemy.''

In some respects, the social behavior is just kid stuff, biologists say. The birds in the wild now are about 2 years old.

It is hoped that once they reach sexual maturity, at about age 6, they will turn their attentions to, well, more titillating matters.

``As they approach breeding age that intense curiosity should decline, because the intense desire to breed will kick in,'' U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service education specialist Jane Hendron said.

Clenenden also hopes to expand a program in which condor chicks are reared by their parents in natural-looking manmade caves to limit all contact with humans.

But if the birds are hampered by an apparent memory problem, they also are the victim of their own soaring abilities.

With a range of up to 150 miles a day, it's virtually impossible to prevent contact with humans in the wild, Clenenden said.

And although four of the latest flock of parent-reared birds were set free far from the 13 already in the wild, the 13 reared by humans wearing condor hand-puppets sought out their compadres within four weeks - three months earlier than expected.

The Los Angeles Zoo hazing program started last year and included a mock telephone pole able to administer a tiny electric shock when the birds set down.

That appears to be the only thing that has had a lasting effect, Clenenden said. None of the birds soaring over Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties has had any run-ins with power lines or poles.

Biologists still hope to iron out the problems with setting the birds free.

Next on the agenda is the release of six birds at the Vermilion Cliffs near the Grand Canyon. That release was delayed for the summer, after some locals feared conflicts between local ranching, mining and other uses. But Clenenden said birds may be moved to the location later this month.

Meanwhile, another release is planned in California in the Ventana Wilderness in Monterey County.

Hendron hopes that if condors continue to be drawn to the public, that people will take the initiative to protect the birds - a strategy that could be mutually beneficial.

``Their beaks are very sharp. It's never happened, but we would just hate for somebody to think that they could go up and touch one,'' Hendron said. ``That beak can tear through cows, so it can tear through human skin.''

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1--Color) A flock of condors from Santa BarbaraCounty pay a visit to Merlin Bruner's back yard outside Tehachapi.

(2) Preventing human contact is nearly impossible because condors can fly up

to 150 miles a day, according to one wildlife biologist.

Bill Mead/Tehachapi News