Just had some news from a friend who works in the San Diego bird park. I am sure you all know of the devastateing fires sweeping the region over there. She told me that the parks bird breeding facility and the condor facility where right in the fires path.
23 californian Condors had to be evacuated in the middle of the night (all safely done) They only managed to rescue 114 of the 400 other birds at the breeding facility which is one of the worlds leading centers for endangered bird captive breeding.
Amazeingly the fire turned at the last min and all but two birds lived. Though some are suffering smoke inhalation and stress.
The facility lost some buildings but the block with the very pricey incubation and rearing equipement was spared.
My respect to all the staff who remained into the night, risking their own lives to rescue and move as many of the birds as they could. With the years of painful trial and error that has gone into trying to save the californian condor it would have been heartbreaking to have lost the 23 birds at the facility.
For those that don't know the bird is far from stable in the wild and work is still on going to establish it. The breeding at the center allows birds to be released into the wild population to keep the numbers growing and so is very important to the over all survival of this speices.
23 californian Condors had to be evacuated in the middle of the night (all safely done) They only managed to rescue 114 of the 400 other birds at the breeding facility which is one of the worlds leading centers for endangered bird captive breeding.
Amazeingly the fire turned at the last min and all but two birds lived. Though some are suffering smoke inhalation and stress.
The facility lost some buildings but the block with the very pricey incubation and rearing equipement was spared.
My respect to all the staff who remained into the night, risking their own lives to rescue and move as many of the birds as they could. With the years of painful trial and error that has gone into trying to save the californian condor it would have been heartbreaking to have lost the 23 birds at the facility.
For those that don't know the bird is far from stable in the wild and work is still on going to establish it. The breeding at the center allows birds to be released into the wild population to keep the numbers growing and so is very important to the over all survival of this speices.
