STATE CONDORS SET TO RETURN TO SKIES OF MONTEREY AREA.Byline: Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. For the first time in decades, California condors will fly over Monterey County later this year if a release goes as planned. Four young condors will be freed in the Ventana Wilderness The Ventana Wilderness is a wilderness area located in the Santa Lucia Mountains along the Central Coast of California. This wilderness was originally established in 1969 by the Ventana Wilderness Act and then subsequently enlarged to its present size of 240,024 acres. in December, to be fed and tracked and cared for by the Ventana Wilderness Sanctuary, the first nonprofit organization Nonprofit Organization An association that is given tax-free status. Donations to a non-profit organization are often tax deductible as well. Notes: Examples of non-profit organizations are charities, hospitals and schools. in California to release condors. The last time a pair of condors bred in Monterey County was 1905, though condors from Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, continued to fly over the Central Coast into the 1970s. Sal Lucido, president and co-founder of the Ventana Wilderness Sanctuary, said the first written account of condors on the Central Coast is from 1602, when European explorers spotted the huge birds feeding on a whale carcass in Monterey Bay. ``We're in for a real treat,'' Lucido said. ``Once you've seen a California condor, you never forget it.'' With a wing span of nearly 10 feet, he said they are ``a gentle giant. I consider them the earth's `E.T.' as far as curiosity and intelligence.'' The last wild California condor was trapped Easter Sunday in 1987, said David Clendenen, senior biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's California Condor Recovery Program. At the time the total number of animals in the world amounted to only 27. ``There are 17 in the wild now,'' he said. ``That's more than in the wild since the early 1980s.'' An additional 121 are in captivity. ``Very possibly it will be exponential from here on out,'' Clendenen said. ``The breeding population just keeps growing and growing.'' Of the 14 chicks expected to be released this year, six are to go to the Vermilion Cliffs The Vermilion Cliffs are the second "step" up in the five-step Grand Staircase of the Colorado Plateau. Reddish or vermilion-colored cliffs are found along U.S. Highway 89 and U.S. Highway 89A near Kanab, Utah (and near Navajo Bridge in Arizona). area of northern Arizona Northern Arizona is dominated by the Colorado Plateau, the southern border of which in Arizona is called the Mogollon Rim. In the West lies the Grand Canyon, which was cut by the flow of the Colorado River while the land slowly rose around it. , near Grand Canyon, four to Ventana and another four are to be released in southern California. |
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