Back From The Brink, California Condor

“Ten thousand years ago, California condors lived on both coasts of North America, from British Columbia to Baja California in the West, and New York to Florida in the East. By about 1900, the condor population plummeted and was limited to southern California, due to many factors including loss of habitat, a low reproductive rate, poisoning, and shooting.”  The California condor was the first species to be listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1973. By 1987, the species became extinct in the wild when the last 22 of the world's remaining wild birds were taken into captivity to form today's California condor recovery program.  “Today, there are nearly 400 condors in the world.  The California Condor Recovery Program reached an important milestone in 2008, when the number of wild condors surpassed the number of captive condors.…While the future is certainly brighter for the California condor, these birds face continuing threats to their survival, including habitat loss, lead poisoning, micro trash, predation and indiscriminate shooting.”