California Condor: 400 and counting..

Never seen one, but I know how important they are. I think they are the biggest bird in North America, and what I guess I would describe as the Apex Scavenger of the American West. Debates continue as to how far East and North they might have ventured,but from Oregon to Texas and all along California and down into Baja and perhaps even Sonora and beyond they soared.
They are huge, 9 foot wingspan. I have seen an Andean Condor, the biggest bird in the world with up to 10.5 ft wingspan, and all I could think to compare it to was a C-5 transport plane as it flew towards me, impossibly large... They are basically huge buzzards, the things look like something out of Spielberg's Dark Crystal, or like an animal caricature of the long lean faces of the old Indian groups from the same areas, like an old man from the Tarahumara in Mexico.
This tells the story better than I could. DDT was the problem, and they are susceptible to lead poisoning as well, which is a second major human cause of premature fatalities, since they often feast on carrion that has bullets or lead shotgun pellets embedded in it..They scooped up every remaining one in the wild they could about 25 years ago, the 20 or so remaining pairs, and started breeding. Their mating got all the attention of European Royalties for a while.
http://shadowofthecondor.com/facts.html
http://www.ventanaws.org/species_condors/
The Plan, with players like the USFWS, NPS; San Diego Zoo, Ventana Wildlife Society, and now the Mexican National Commission for Natural Protected Areas (CONANP) and SEMARNAT, the Mexican equivalent of an EPA, was to breed the remaining ones and try to increase numbers, then release them into the wild again as it became possible
with the degradation of the remaining DDT derivatives in the environment. The multi national multi agency effort up to five release sites:
Big Sur http://www.bigsurcalifornia.org/condors.html they never quite say where, but it looks like the northern areas near Monterrey. To be exact: http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=578
http://gocalifornia.about.com/od/cabigsurmenu/a/condor-watch.htm
Pinnacles (never heard of it?..it's a bit obscure as National Parks go, although there are like 380 of them. Inland from Salinas and Monterrey, east of the 101 on a dirt road last time I went there.)
http://www.nps.gov/pinn/naturescience/condors.htm
Sespe Condor Sanctuary in Los Padres National Forest, basically just north of Simi Valley, practically Angelinos, these scavengers:
https://plus.google.com/113976984920027860164/about?gl=mx&hl=en
The Vermillion Cliffsof Northern Arizona, north of the grand Canyon:
http://www.blm.gov/az/st/en/prog/recreation/watchable/condors.html
And now the highest area of the Baja Peninsula, the Mountains of San Pedro Martir, which rise to 11,000 ft and are well separated from many pressures.
http://www.inecc.gob.mx/menu-con-eco-ch/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=395:condor-parque&catid=37
They even have kindof a spotter site for fans:
http://www.condorspotter.com/
the effort is multinational and going places, soaring so to speak...
Like a lot of these Endangered species that number less than 1000 (Red Wolves, Atlantic Right Whales, The Vaquita), they seem to breed about once a year, so the number is a year to year thing. It's like watching your favorite sports league at a glacial pace... but watch the progress we shall.. maybe we even pretend the things are pretty! With a little surgery, maybe we could get them work in the San Fernando Valley..