Condor Creek Conservation Facility

The Oregon Zoo's condor conservation facility in rural Clackamas County will help the U.S. Fish and Wildlife agency breed California condors. The program's goal is to remove the bird from the endangered species list. Photo by Michael Durham/Oregon Zoo

The Oregon Zoo is working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife department to help the endangered California condor survive and thrive.

The zoo is building a condor conservation facility in rural Clackamas County as part of an effort to remove the bird from the endangered species list. The zoo petitioned the Fish and Wildlife service to get involved, and in return was asked to provide a breeding program where the birds can be bred in captivity and released into the wild.

Like the Eagle Canyon exhibit, the Condor Creek facility was designed and built by the zoo's exhibits staff. When complete (expected next year, but dependent on the success of fund-raising efforts), the facility will feature four large buildings partially camouflaged to look like rock walls, and four runs. Here, several pairs of condors will be studied and bred.

The breeding program encourages the birth of two to three chicks per year, as opposed to one chick every two to three years in the wild, said Jan Steele, the Oregon Zoo's zoological curator. Once down to just 22 birds in the wild, the California condor population has grown to 217 birds today.

advertisement

Culvert and drainage work at the site has slowed for the next several months because the condors were expected to be laying eggs. Construction will remain halted during the two-month incubation period, as well as the first three to four months of the new chicks' lives.

Crews must be vigilant while building around the condors, Steele said. The birds are intelligent and will often pick up and manipulate any debris left near their enclosures. Nails, small tools and anything with lead are extremely dangerous.

While the conservation facility is 25 mi. from the zoo itself, future plans call for the construction of a condor exhibit on zoo grounds that will help describe the zoo's efforts in the recovery program. Condors that have not been successful in the release program or have exhibited poor social skills in the wild would likely be housed there.