Flight of the Condor: Yurok Tribe to Return Captive-Bred Bird to California Coast

The Yurok Tribe conservation group has been granted permission to return the great-winged California condor to its native lands of the Redwood Coast, according to The Associated Press.

Over the last five years, the Yurok Tribe Wildlife Program -- with the aid of several government agencies - has performed studies to determine whether the endangered avian could be reintroduced back to the North Coast.

After more than a century of their absence, the condor - North America's largest land bird - will be released into the wild in the next one to three years, tribal biologist Chris West said. Seven sites are currently under consideration on Redwood National and State Parks, along with private lands within 50 miles of each other, just south of the Klamath River.

The tribes, who hold the condor sacred (the Yurok Tribe uses their feathers in traditional ceremonial dances), are working to develop private funding to cover the estimated annual cost of about $400,000, West said.

"When a species like condor or eagle gives you material for your regalia, it is considered their spirit is in that, too. They are singing with you, and praying with you," she said. "We can get feathers from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, but it's not the same thing as being able to go out there and collect the feathers we need from condors flying over our own skies."

Condors, with a nine-foot wingspan, once flew from Baja California to British Columbia. Now there are just over 400 California condors left in the world, and only 230 living in the wild, according to John McCamman, condor coordinator for the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento, Calif.

Human activity contributed to the dwindling population, including electrical wires, lead poisoning from bullet fragments left behind in dead animals, hunting and eggshell thinning caused by the now outlawed insecticide DDT.

The released birds will be fitted with GPS tracking devices that will send their geographical locations straight to scientists' computers in hopes of monitoring for lead poisoning.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the California Department of Parks and Recreation, and the Ventana Wildlife Society all signed the memorandum.