Return of the condors.

Byline: Bob Keefer The Register-Guard

The condors have come home to Oregon.

California condors, that is - enormous, outlandish birds that look like cartoon vultures, with their funeral-director black plumage, bare pink, yellow and blue heads and huge, flesh-tearing beaks.

First documented in Oregon by the Lewis and Clark expedition, California condors used to fly the skies over the Columbia Gorge and the Oregon Coast, soaring on 10-foot wingspans as they hunted for carrion and dead fish.

Condors were last reliably observed here near Drain in 1904. Battered by everything from vanishing habitat to DDT, predator poisoning campaigns and even hunting, the condor nearly went completely extinct before the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, in a move then controversial, trapped the last 17 wild birds in California in 1987 to start a last-ditch breeding program to save the species.

The program has been a success, with some 221 California condors now distributed between wild release in California and Arizona and living in captive breeding programs.

Now Oregon's getting in on the act. Twelve California condors, which had been living at condor recovery sites in Idaho, California and Arizona, arrived in late November at the Condor Creek Conservation Facility, a special breeding facility being run by the Oregon Zoo in a rural area of northern Clackamas County.

Not open to the public, the facility occupies an old family farm and consists, basically, of a set of six huge wire mesh birdcages - one for each breeding pair - and some cold, uncomfortable staff space.

"This is the female we expect to breed this year," whispered Jan Steele, the zoo's curator for the condor program, as she stood inside an unpainted plywood shed that runs, tunnel-like, between the cages. "Tama is very comfortable here."

Tama and her mate, Mandan, sat side by side near the top of a bare dead tree inside one of the cages. She is, in fact, one of the 17 birds originally captured in the wild and has proved herself a reliable breeder in captivity.

One thing that makes Tama and the other birds feel at ease, despite the fact they are housed in 30-by-50-by-30-foot cages, is that they have no human contact. Steele and the other animal caretakers are continuously hidden inside the wooden structure, where they speak only in whispers. They watch the birds through one-way mirrors and by video monitor. You're not even allowed to drive on the gravel access road within about a quarter mile of the cages, because the sound of tires on gravel might disturb the birds.

In the wild, condors produce but a single egg each year, one of the reasons for their population decline. In the California Condor Recovery Program, curators have tricked Mother Nature into doubling that production by immediately stealing the first egg laid by each nesting pair. That first egg is sent off for artificial incubation and rearing by zookeepers with condor-like puppets as parental stand-ins. Deprived of her first effort, the condor female immediately lays a new egg.

What works in California may not work in Oregon, however. No one knows much about the natural history of condors in Oregon, with our wet, cold climate and short winter days, and the staff at the breeding facility here is watching and taking careful notes on the birds' behavior.

"Wiloq nibbled (Woy's) feathers playfully, very comfortable with close contact on snag," read a morning note for Dec. 22 on the interactions between Woy, a male born Aug. 1, 1992, and reared by condors at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, and his intended mate, Wiloq, born April 8, 1997, at the Los Angeles Zoo and reared by people with puppets.

"In Southern California, the breeding season has already started," Steele said. "We're not sure when the breeding season is, here."

Assuming that condor romance blossoms, each egg will be incubated by its parents or in an incubator for about two months, producing a spectacularly ugly chick that can fly in about four months and will reach sexual maturity in five to seven years. The parents feed their chicks by regurgitating carrion they've eaten and carried back to the nest.

The Oregon birds are being fed a diet of dead rats, rabbits, chickens and trout. They especially seem to like the trout, Steele says, indicating their preference for living around water; in Oregon, they're believed to have lived primarily along the coast.

And they seem to be putting up with Oregon's harsher weather without much trouble. Each cage offers a cave-like nest box with a heated sand floor, but the birds don't use them to warm up, even on cold days. "The first day they arrived, we had the most snowfall we'd seen in six years," Steele said.

Within a few months of hatching, the young condors will be placed in a much larger pen, about 30 feet wide by 280 feet long, for socializing with other condors. The giant birds are intelligent and sociable, and learning to interact with one another is an important part of their upbringing.

The final step is aversion training to teach the young condors to avoid real-world dangers, from power lines to people. They'll be introduced to a fake power pole that delivers an irritating but non-lethal shock; and they'll have their first contact with a human in the form of an intrusive veterinary exam - one expected to make them wish to avoid people for the rest of their lives.

The Oregon Zoo's involvement grew out of discussions that started three years ago. "There has been a real strong trend in the zoo business for the last four or five years to focus conservation efforts on local issues," zoo director Tony Vecchio said. `A number of people on the staff and people from outside organizations came to me and said, `Did you know the California condor is a native species? Lewis and Clark talked about them.' I had never thought of the condor as a local species.'

Negotiations with the California Condor Recovery Project led to the Oregon Zoo's agreement to take 16 breeding pairs in a program that will ultimately cost $3 million - $1.4 million has been donated so far - for capital construction as well as two full-time staff members to operate. The zoo plans one day to exhibit condors to the public, though none is on display now.

The 12 Oregon condors that arrived here by commerical jetliner in what amounts to giant pet carriers seem interested in their new environment.

"The first day I saw them, I could see their reaction to hearing a pileated woodpecker," says zookeeper Katy Weil. "They all cocked their heads 45 degrees and listened. They come from a rockier habitat. They are not going to hear a pileated woodpecker where they came from."

Eventually, the young condors produced by these captive birds are destined to be released back into the wild in California and Arizona.

It will be some years before anyone releases birds in Oregon. No one is certain whether habitat still exists here - particularly in the Columbia Gorge - to support them.

Vecchio thinks condors might be released in Oregon as soon as three or four years from now, perhaps in the remote Siskiyou Mountains, but he admits he's on the optimistic end of the spectrum. More conservative estimates range up to 10 years.

Meanwhile, Joe Burnett, the zoo's new assistant curator for condors, is living at a farmhouse next to the breeding facility to help keep a round-the-clock eye on the birds. He notes the cost of the breeding program is high, but says the money is worth it.

"These are very expensive birds," he says. "But this is where you can see the Endangered Species Act does work. In 20 or 30 years, and hopefully sooner, there will be a self-sustaining population again out in the wild. We can begin to correct what we originally screwed up."

CAPTION(S):

A California condor is one of 12 that has been brought to the Oregon Zoo's Condor Creek Conservation Facility. Joe Burnett maneuvers cameras that monitor the condors without subjecting the birds to human contact. Collin Andrew The condors at the breeding facility in rural Clackamas County can be seen through one-way glass from an observation room. Collin Andrew "These are very expensive birds. But this is where you can see the Endangered Species Act does work. In 20 or 30 years, and hopefully sooner, there will be a self-sustaining population again out in the wild. We can begin to correct what we originally screwed up." - JOE BURNETT, ASSISTANT CURATOR FOR CONDORS, OREGON ZOO Condors perch on branches inside the new facility, which includes six large wire mesh cages - one for each breeding pair. The young condors produced by these birds will be released into the wild in California and Arizona. It may be 10 years before any are released in Oregon. First documented in Oregon by the Lewis and Clark expedition, California condors used to fly over the Columbia Gorge and the Oregon Coast. The last reliable sighting in this state was in 1904 near Drain. Collin Andrew / The Register-Guard