Hopes Soar for Condor Colony at Grand Canyon : Conservation: Ventura-based program plans to establish second wild population of the endangered birds in February.

Wildlife biologists in Ventura County who run the federal effort to save the endangered California condor are finalizing plans for a bold move: founding a new colony at the Grand Canyon in Arizona early next year.

The planned release, which marks the return of the carrion-eating giants to the majestic cliffs of the canyon after a 70-year absence, would plant the seeds for a second wild condor population, a pivotal element in the quest to bring the species back from the brink of extinction.

The first wild condor population originally was in Ventura County, and was moved last year to Santa Barbara County. But a second colony is viewed as crucial to the decade-old, $15-million effort to ultimately remove the bird from the endangered species list.

“We’re talking about making conservation history here,” said Robert Mesta, coordinator for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s Ventura-based Condor Recovery Program. “It’s the stuff you’ll later read about in encyclopedias.”

Only 13 California condors are in the wild now, stretching their nine-foot wingspans to soar above the ragged rock cliffs of the Santa Barbara County backcountry. Four condor chicks at a rearing camp in the rugged hills above Fillmore are being prepared for release at a site in San Luis Obispo County and will be considered a spinoff of the Santa Barbara population.

Another 86 adults and chicks, which are not part of any wild population group, are at captive breeding facilities in Los Angeles, San Diego and Idaho.

“The object of these programs is to work ourselves out of a job as rapidly as possible,” said Lloyd Kiff, science director for the nonprofit Peregrine Fund in Boise, Ida., who is heading the Arizona-based efforts in the release. Kiff, who led the Ventura-based Condor Recovery Team during a critical period from 1987 to 1992 when the last wild condors were captured and the first zoo-bred animals were released, said now is the time to make the move out of state.

“If our goal is to have two separate wild populations of 150 birds, then we have to get this show on the road,” he said. “The thing we really need now is good release sites.”

According to the goals of the program, the condors’ status would be “downlisted” to that of a threatened species when two wild populations of 150 animals with 15 breeding pairs are established, and the total captive breeding population at the Los Angeles, San Diego and Idaho facilities reaches the same numbers.

But because condors, which mate for life, do not pair up and breed until they reach age 6, there is built-in lag time.

A notice of the release in Arizona, which is planned in February, and the impacts it would have on the area is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register this week.

Wildlife officials from Ventura, along with others from the Peregrine Fund, have held public meetings to scope out the plan and allow residents near the release area to ask questions.

Although many residents and business operators in the Grand Canyon area have expressed concerns that the release of an endangered species may restrict their activities, no one has formally opposed the plan, Mesta said.

Clay Bravo, assistant director of natural resources with the Hualapai Indian Nation, whose 1-million-acre reservation is nearby, said the tribe is concerned about the release and its effect on tribal income.

“It’s a great idea as long as they understand that the tribe has to look at economic issues and that the condor does not interfere with those economic issues,” he said, referring to the tribe’s effort to bring slot machines and other gaming to the reservation.

Others in the area have concerns that airplane tours over the canyon might be restricted, according to an environmental assessment of the project by the Peregrine Fund released by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service earlier this month. Some ranchers, whose cattle graze on federally owned Bureau of Land Management property, fear that their operations would be cut back as well, the report said.

But officials contend that in this case, there will be none of the restrictions that usually surround endangered species.

The nine condors, scheduled for release just outside Grand Canyon National Park at an area called the Vermilion Cliffs, are being set free under a special section of the Endangered Species Act that will not restrict surrounding activities.

Under Section 10J of the act, the recovery program can release the condors as an “experimental” or “nonessential” population, meaning that a particular group of birds is not essential to the survival of the species.

The species’ genetic diversity is preserved through the captive breeding population. Therefore, the animals being released would not carry the level of protection that would prohibit any activity that would disturb the animals or destroy their habitat.

“The folks out there are concerned that we’re going to release an endangered species and they won’t be able to continue their practices,” Mesta said. “But under this section, they can literally hit one with a tractor and not be penalized.”

Others were concerned that Grand Canyon National Park, which receives 6 million visitors a year, might be too busy a spot for the curious condors. Although the Vermilion Cliffs are located in extremely difficult terrain about 25 miles outside the heavily visited park, the distance is a short hop for the condors, which can easily travel 100 miles in a day.

“Biologists figure that it won’t be long before they move down the Colorado River and into the Grand Canyon proper,” said Bert Harting, a consulting biologist for the Peregrine Fund who co-authored the environmental report.

But there is plenty of land and open space for the visitors and the birds, Kiff said.

“There is an inordinate amount of caves and cliffs and public lands,” Kiff said. “I doubt that the condors will set up on the South Rim at the lodge,” the most heavily visited part of the canyon. He said he hoped they would find places to roost on more remote, public land.

“But if they do set up on private land, the condors will just have to get their lives together and move to public land,” he said.

Four condors set free since 1992 in Ventura County died after hitting power poles or drinking antifreeze, and several others had to be recaptured after they proved too curious about populated areas.

But the condors released in the Grand Canyon area will receive aversion training to power poles and people, just as the 13 birds now in the wild have received. That training has so far been successful in keeping the animals away from people and out of trouble.

Others have been concerned that an Arizona release would shift the focus of the Condor Recovery Program away from California, said Jesse Grantham, director of Audubon Sanctuaries in the West in Sacramento.

“But it has been shown that the people in Arizona want to take the program on themselves and it won’t detract from the California program,” he said.