Condors Threatened by Garbage

Just when things were beginning to look hopeful for the California Condor, we hear that young birds are dying because they swallow pieces of glass, plastic, and metal.

In the 1980s, California Condors were extinct in the wild, but a small population survived in captivity. In 1992, their return to the wild began with the release of two birds fledged in a captive breeding program. Over the years their number increased slowly with repeated releases, and nesting attempts were greeted with great excitement by those who had worked hard to restore the species. But, between 2001 and 2005, only one of 13 nests in Southern California produced a healthy fledgling.

Young California Condors die when they ingest lead shot that hunters have left in carrion, resulting in lead poisoning. They die when they swallow pieces of broken glass, and small pieces of metal and plastic—the things that have been left strewn across just about every landscape on Earth, things which our consumer culture seems to be producing in constantly increasing quantities. The problem is that adult condors feed bone fragments to chicks to provide calcium, and they frequently mistake small hard objects that they find near a carcass for small pieces of bone.

It boggles the mind to contemplate the cleanup effort required to make even remote wilderness habitat safe for California Condors and other species if just a bottle cap is a threat. Can we not only clean up what’s out there, but also get rid of lead bullets, and convince everyone that sets foot in the woods that they can’t leave so much as a plastic button behind? This will take a sea change in attitude and it can’t come fast enough.

Do you think we can successfully tackle this problem to save the California Condor? Start a discussion.

Related content:

Albatrosses also suffer heavy losses from ingested garbage.

Greater Shearwaters and other seabirds ingest pieces of plastic.