California Condor 726 at High Peaks with Crowd

Another encounter with Ventana condor 726 (aka "Little Stinker) at the crest of the High Peaks Trail, Pinnacles National Park. This was taken on New Year's Eve 2019 and it was a really thrilling close-up encounter which is very rare to experience. I just can't shut up, so I interrupted the conversation of some fellow viewers to hopefully pass on some relevant information. This was the visit when I first began to think that my old pal condor 463 had gotten lead poisoning. I was fairly bereft, and slightly antagonistic toward the world. It's hard to be optimistic about lead and the California condor. Studies suggest that even if there is only a tiny percentage of folks who keep using lead ammunition, the population will be unsustainable except by the extreme measures of continued captive breeding and even more rigorous lead-mitigation procedures. Costly things, especially dangerous now that the EPA can weigh the economics in the equation. Hopefully the tourist draw of places like Pinnacles BECAUSE of the condors provides an economic boon. Though personally I feel like humanity and society as a whole have a DUTY to attempt to reestablish a population because we owe it to them, having been their downfall for so long.

Also, someone ACTUALLY commented on this video (such a rare occurrence) and I managed to delete(or hide) it while attempting to reply. It was this question:

"Do you know how they get the lead out of them?"

I do know. First, after they've captured the bird, they test for lead. The threshold is very high. If humans had those levels, they'd be in the ICU, but for condors high lead parts per million is just a given. If the birds have this high level, they get chelated. An injection of a substance which binds to the lead in their blood and allows it to be excreted. Then, after a few days, they test their blood again. If the lead has gone down, they keep them where they are and test again later. At a certain point, when their lead levels have gone down to acceptable levels, they release the birds. If, however, on that second test, the levels have not gone down, they consider surgery. Often they need to slice into the bird and pull lead fragments from their digestive tracts. They also make use of psillium to "purge" the guts of lead fragments. Lead in the digestive tract also freezes digestive function, so often they have to force food through the crop...literally plunging it in...to get the birds nutrition.

Also, the chelation really only affects the blood itself. It doesn't remove the lead that's already been absorbed in tissue and bone. So chelation isn't really any sort of cure...it only cuts the lead in the blood.

If the tissue and fats and bones of the creature have absorbed a bunch of lead, it's like a time-bomb waiting to go off. If the bird gets sick or has to use up its fat reserves, that metabolism re-poisons the bloodstream, and makes the bird's health much more vulnerable...if not actively endangered.

Myra Finkelstein utilized a feather analysis which is similar to that drug test humans use where you analyse a strand of hair. She and her crew found that condors were consistently and chronically exposed to lead. Since condors are only trapped and tested about twice a year, the probability of a condor dropping dead from lead exposure outside that once-in-6-months window is very high.

Her study, and others, really draw into question the sanity of releasing experimental populations in areas where lead is all over the place and completely legal. Like Arizona, Utah, even Oregon (if that upcoming Northern California experimental population ever gets established). I feel like that is feeding the birds into a meat-grinder.

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