California Condor

For the first time in the United States, biologists have used a flu vaccine designed specially to protect the endangered California condor.

Wildlife officials say the first California condor was discovered dead in the fall of 2022 with a second one found in the same area in June. The condor is protected as an endangered species.

Wildlife staff at Grand Canyon National Park have confirmed a California condor nest visible from Plateau Point and the Yavapai Geology Museum.

Environmental advocates this week urged the federal government to expedite approvals for a vaccine, warning that the avian flu strain — which has already killed at least 17% of the Arizona-Utah condor flock — is “jeopardizing the existence” of the iconic bird.

Twenty California condors in northern Arizona and southern Utah have died since March, and half of the endangered birds tested positive for a strain of avian flu.

Three California condors have died from avian flu in northern Arizona and authorities are trying to determine what killed five others in the flock.

Captive-bred California Condors will be released back into the wild at Arizona’s Vermillion Cliffs Saturday.

California condors don’t have an easy time raising their chicks. The eggs take two months to hatch, and it’s a full year before the baby birds can live on their own. But now scientists know condor mothers can skip a step in the baby-making process if they want to. They don’t have to mate with a male to lay a healthy egg.

The longtime head of the California condor recovery program, Chris Parish, has been named as the new president and CEO of the Peregrine Fund.Parish began…

The endangered California condor could return to the Pacific Northwest for the first time in 100 years. The San Francisco Chronicle says the U.S. Fish and…