Condors to stay wild

Press, 10 February 1986, Page 17

Condors to stay wild

NZPA-AP Washington A United States Federal judge has barred the United States Government from capturing five condors remaining in the wild about 160 km north of Los Angeles. Judge Parker said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service maintained until recently that there should be a wild population of the broad-winged scavengers, the largest land bird in North America and an endangered species. Late last year the service issued a permit authorising the capture and removal of all surviving wild condors in California, said Judge Parker.

"The record offers no reasoned analysis nor any strong justification for F.W.S.’s abrupt policy reversal.” He said the service had pointed to the death of six condors during the 1984-

85 winter as the reason for wanting to capture the remaining five in the wild and placing them in captivity with the 21 now in the Los Angeles Zoo and the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Lawyers for the Federal Government had argued before Judge Parker that capture of the remaining wild condors was designed to prevent deaths among the flock. The National Audubon Society, which brought the suit to block capture of the birds, argued that the roundup would make it impossible to re-establish flocks in the wild. Audubon lawyers said that without some condors remaining in the wild, the planned release of some now-captive birds would never succeed as they would have no wild condors from which to learn to survive.