The California Condor, a type of vulture, is an endangered species. You can currently only find the condor in the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, and western coastal mountains of California and northern Baja California. And each of these birds has a tag on it's arm identifying it. The condors are part of a captive breeding and recovery program.
Because of lead poisoning, poaching, and habitat destruction, the numbers of wild condors dropped to 22 birds in the wild in the late 1980s, so scientists captured them all and brought them to the San Diego Wild Animal Park and the Los Angeles Zoo. Numbers rose through captive breeding and, beginning in 1991, condors have been reintroduced into the wild. This project is the most expensive species conservation project ever undertaken in the United States and the condor is one of the world's rarest bird species. As of March 2010, there are 349 condors known to be living, including 180 in the wild.Earlier this year, the first egg was laid in the wild since the birds have been reintroduced. It was cause for great celebration. Until just last week... when the chick was found to have too much lead in its system, and was captured to bring in for medical help.
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The condors had a lot of lead in their blood because of lead bullets. Condors are scavengers and when they eat animals that were killed by lead bullets the lead from the bullets get into their blood streams. The condors are treated with chelation, a process in which calcium EDTA is injected into the animals. If hunters switched to non-lead bullets the condors would have less exposure to lead. Humans have a big impact on the natural world and we should all work to reduce it.
ReplyDeleteThe birds are exposed to lead because condors are exclusively scavengers, feeding on a wide range of dead mammals. Research has established that the principle source of lead exposure among condors is ammunition. They are treated by being given chelation. It is a process used in condors in which calcium EDTA, a chemical that binds with heavy metals, is injected into the animals to prevent retention of lead in the tissues. Birds being exposed to lead can be prevented by shooters making a switch to non-lead ammunition.
ReplyDeletejael 6*
Condor chicks get exposed to lead because of the male parent's high toxic levels and lead ammunition from hunters. Since animals that were shot are dead, the lead from the ammunition enters the body and the condors eat it. They can be treated by going to a special facilityfor humans to take care of them. This can be prevented by having hunters not hunt the animals because it's bad of course and animal population has been decreasing.
ReplyDeleteThe condors got led in their blood by eating animal that have been killed by led bullets because they are scavengers. They are treated by a process called chelation, in which calcium is injected into their blood. This can be prevented if hunters used non-led bullets so that the animal that the condors feed on don't have led in them.
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