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LOS ANGELES — Seventeen California condor chicks hatched on the Los Angeles Zoo in the course of the 2024 breeding season, breaking the file of 15 set in 1997, zoo officers introduced final week.

The ultimate chick of the season hatched in June and is prospering, in keeping with the zoo. Each will likely be a candidate for launch again into the wild as a part of the California Condor Restoration Program, administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“It is a historic second for the California Condor Restoration Program and the Los Angeles Zoo’s animal care group,” Rose Legato, the zoo’s curator of birds, mentioned in an announcement. “Our condor group has raised the bar as soon as once more within the collaborative effort to save lots of America’s largest flying chook from extinction.”

Legato cited new breeding and rearing methods that led to the record-breaking variety of chicks. Zoo workers put two or three condor chicks along with a single grownup surrogate condor to be raised, leading to extra chicks in this system and in the end extra birds to be launched into the wild.

The brand new method was pioneered in 2017: Till then, no different zoo or California Condor Restoration Program accomplice had tried the method.

The LA Zoo has housed California condors since 1967, when Topa Topa got here to the zoo as a malnourished fledgling rescued within the wild. In 1983, there have been solely 22 of those birds remaining on the planet, so the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Fish and Sport Fee agreed to create a captive breeding program for the species, which the LA Zoo entered as a founding accomplice.

“It’s the cornerstone of the zoo’s mission to save lots of wildlife and an essential instance of a profitable conservation partnership between zoos, authorities companies, indigenous peoples and personal organizations,” LA Zoo Director and CEO Denise Verret mentioned in an announcement. “We’re proud to have the ability to make such a big contribution to the preservation of nature.”

As of December 2023, there have been 561 California condors on the earth, of which 344 live within the wild. The quantity fluctuates day by day as a consequence of exterior influences akin to habitat loss and pesticide contamination.

The California condor is the most important land chook in North America with wings spanning nine-and-a-half ft. Grownup condors stand at round three ft and weigh 17 to 25 kilos.

The species can soar to heights of 15,000 ft and should journey as much as 150 miles a day.

LA Zoo guests can view the birds day by day, besides Tuesday, within the Condor Recognizing space and study them from workers members from 12:30-1 p.m. on the picnic space subsequent to the Angela Collier World of Birds Present Theater.

Visitors can even see Hope, a non-releasable California condor, on the Angela Collier World of Birds Present at midday day by day, besides Tuesday, climate allowing.

Picture by Jamie Pham/Los Angeles Zoo


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