AP – By all accounts, Milagra the “miracle” California condor shouldn’t be alive today.
But now at nearly 17 months old, she is one of four of the giant endangered birds who will get to stretch their wings in the wild as part of a release last weekend near the Grand Canyon.
There is no more appropriate name for a young bird that has managed to survive against all odds. Her mother died from the worst outbreak of avian flu in the United States (US) history soon after she laid her egg and her father nearly succumbed to the same fate while struggling to incubate the egg alone.
Milagra, which means miracle in Spanish, was rescued from her nest and hatched in captivity thanks to the care of her foster condor parents.
The emergency operation was part of a programme established some 40 years ago to help bring the birds back from the brink of extinction when their numbers had plummeted to fewer than two dozen.
The Peregrine Fund and the Bureau of Land Management streamed the release of Milagra and the others online on Saturday from Vermillion Cliffs National Monument, about 80 kilometres from the Grand Canyon’s North Rim.
Condors have been released there since 1996. But the annual practice was put on hold last year due to what is known as the “bird flu.” Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza killed 21 condors in the Utah-Arizona flock.
“This year’s condor release will be especially impactful given the losses we experienced in 2023 from HPAI and lead poisoning,” said The Peregrine Fund’s California Condor programme director Tim Hauck.
Today, as many as 360 of the birds are estimated to be living in the wild, with some in the Baja of Mexico and most in California, where similar releases continue. More than 200 others live in captivity.
The largest land bird in North America with a wing-span of 2.9 metres, condors have been protected in the US as an endangered species since 1967. Many conservationists consider it a miracle any still exist at all.
