The Los Angeles Zoo is capping off its 2024 California condor breeding season with a record 17 chicks born, all intended to be candidates for release into the wild as The California Condor Recovery Program (CCRP) includes condors in the wild.
17 Adorable Yet Awkward Condor Chicks
The final, 17th chick of the season hatched in June and is doing well. The previous record of 15 California condor chicks born at the Los Angeles Zoo was set in 1997.
Photographers went out of their way to capture this famously ugly bird during the miracle of birth, and the images were heralded in the Los Angeles Times as “photographs of ugly and beautiful chicks.”
“Our condor institution has outdone others in our collaborative effort to save America’s largest flying chicken,” said Rose Legato, curator of birds at the Los Angeles Zoo. “What we are seeing now are the advantages of new breeding and rearing strategies developed and implemented by our team, which placed two or three condor chicks together with adult surrogate condors to raise them. As a result, the number of condors in the wild and chicks in the program is constantly increasing.
In 2017, the Los Angeles Zoo pioneered a new breeding method in which the animal care team placed two condor chicks with a surrogate condor to raise them. Until that time, no other zoo or CCRP partner had tested this system. This year, the zoo’s condor team implemented a technique that allows one female to raise three chicks at the same time, another first for this system.
This triple-rearing process maximizes the zoo’s ability to raise condors without human interaction, making it easier for the birds to be easily monitored while they are released into the wild. It also allows breeding pairs to produce multiple potential eggs in one season.
For the record-breaking 2024 breeding season, the L.A. Zoo’s animal care team successfully raised 3 singleton chicks, 8 chicks in double-brood situations, and 6 chicks in triple broods with adult mentors.
The condor breeding program at the zoo began in 1967 when a single male named Topa Topa arrived at the zoo as a malnourished chick rescued from the wild. By 1983, there were a maximum of 22 California condors in the world, so the U.S.
The California Fish and Game Commission and the Fish and Wildlife Service created a captive breeding program for the species, in which the Los Angeles Zoo participated founding partner.
As of December 2023, there are 561 California condors in the world, of which 344 live in the wild. The number fluctuates daily due to many external effects.
The California condor is the largest land bird in North America with wingspans that measure nearly 10 feet. Adult condors stand about 3 feet tall and weigh between 17 and 25 pounds. The species can travel up to 150 kilometers per day and up to 15,000 feet in the air. Condors often find their food with the help of their keen eyesight.
Like vultures and other scavengers, condors are part of nature’s cleanup crew, feeding on the carcasses of large mammals, including deer, cattle, and marine mammals, as well as whales and seals.
The L.A. Times reports that the chicks will remain at the zoo for the next year and a half. Afterward, as has been done before with 250 chicks born at the zoo over the years, they will be evaluated for their fitness to be released back into the wild.