Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
ZION NATIONAL PARK — According to condor program personnel who are monitoring a couple of condors at Zion National Park, there is a condor chick living there, but officials are on high alert due to a recent condor death.
Last week, biologists from The Peregrine Fund started to notice that the male condor, condor 337, was acting strange. Rather than going to the feeding grounds regularly to find food for his family, he had become sedentary. The biologists went to check on him, and he was sick and in need of care, according to Zion National Park.
“Initial assessments after capture revealed that the 16-year-old male was lethargic, dehydrated and severely emaciated,” Zion National Park officials reported. “A field blood test revealed elevated levels of lead in the bloodstream, so the bird was given supportive care, fluids, and chelation treatment to help reduce dangerously high lead levels. Despite best efforts to stabilize his condition, condor 337 died the next day. Authorities from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were notified, and the body is being transferred to pathologists who will determine cause of death.”
Biologists are currently monitoring the condor chick and the mother to determine if they may be in danger. As of Monday afternoon, they are in good condition. It seems as if the chick is old enough to maintain its body temperature, which might allow its mom to locate enough food for both of them.
“Cooperating agencies, including The Peregrine Fund, Zion National Park, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are hoping that this will be the first condor chick hatched in Utah to join the wild population,” according to Zion National Park.
The No. 1 cause of diagnosed death for condors in Northern Arizona and Southern Utah is lead poisoning.
Lead-poisoning is not a recent problem for condors. In 2007, Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill that made lead ammunition illegal in certain areas. “Programs are in place to reduce the presence of lead from big-game hunting in the fall,” Zion National Park officials reported. “The current lead poisoning case, however, has occurred in summer, and it highlights the little-known fact that gun-killed animals other than deer and elk can poison condors. Lead used to dispatch any animal, domestic or wild, whose remains might be left in the field, can poison scavengers.”
Officials are asking the public to use non-lead ammunition to dispatch domestic stock, harvest game animals, or when they shoot varmints or small game. Another option is to remove the remains of animals that have been shot with lead-based ammunition from the field, according to Zion National Park.
Huntingwithnonlead.org provides more information about non-lead ammunition. Those planning to hunt big-game in the southern Utah hunting units next fall can obtain coupons for free non-lead ammunition from the DWR.
