FLIGHT OF THE CONDOR - In Ecuador and Peru the world's largest flying bird gets a helping hand

International Wildlife, May-June, 2000 by Tui De Roy

Not until age six will a young condor molt its brown feathers and grow the black-and-white plumage of adults. Meanwhile it must find its place in condor society and establish a bond with what will probably be a lifelong mate. If just a few too many adults die prematurely, the cycle is broken as deaths outstrip hatchings and population numbers begin to plummet.

Walking over a mountain pass, we meet a smiling old man driving a llama train. "We don't like the condors much because when they have young to feed they'll swoop right down on our baby alpacas and kill them," he says. "Some time ago the people of the nearby village set out a poisoned carcass, killing 25 condors in retaliation in just one day." Other people tell us, "Condors push full grown cows to their death off cliff edges. They even carry away live sheep in their talons."

Learning about condors from the local residents is an exercise in separating myth from fact. Any quick look at condor anatomy, for example, will show that the bird's feet resemble those of a turkey and therefore are incapable of lifting even a rabbit. But some of the lore is intriguing, including the assertion that the condors have their own leader, a very old male the natives refer to as the "Apu," which in the local tongue means "the wise one." We are told that no matter how hungry condors might be, they will not descend on a carcass until the Apu decides it is safe to do so.

Whatever the truth of such tales, it is true that people long ago hunted wild game down to very low numbers, and condors are forced to rely on the remains of domestic animals ranging free in the mountains. Could the intelligent birds really harass panicked cattle into throwing themselves off a precipice? Or are the birds simply so clever at finding a carcass soon after the animal's death that its owner concludes they are the perpetrators?

In the Colca Canyon, winter is setting in. With the thin flush of grass on the high slopes fast shriveling up, it is time for local people to cull old, unwanted horses and donkeys. Interested in seeing the condors feed, we construct blinds near a carcass.

We start our vigil crouched between miserably cold boulders, invisible save for a few tiny peepholes in dense shrubbery. Within hours after the carcass is deposited, condors gather in ever-growing numbers, circling high in the sky and perching on rocky ridges. Soon there are so many condors I can count 28 in my narrow field of view. Many more swoop low overhead. The eerie sound of the air passing through wing feathers differs with each bird, from a low treble, to a high whistle, to one sirenlike whine.

One man concerned about the local feeling about the birds is Mauricio de Romana, who runs a small tourist lodge in the canyon-and who has founded his own conservation organization, PRODENA (short for Pro Defensa de la Naturaleza, meaning In Defense of Nature). Romana has long nurtured a dream: setting aside land for the first inviolate condor sanctuary. The key, he hopes, will be tourism.