The California Condor: a case for dignified extinction
Close up of the California Condor
Originally uploaded by kjdrill
The California Condor was near extinction in the 1980s, but today its population soars above 200 (from 27) thanks to captive-breeding programs. The new challenge is in reintroducing these birds to the wild. Only 7 of 242 released condors have resulted in successful fledglings. The Economist reports that failed nests are likely due to trash:
One chick, indeed, had consumed 37 bottle caps, a number of electrical connectors, several bolts, some pieces of plastic piping and even several shards of glass before dying.
One theory is that condors scavenge for bits of bone from carcasses to feed to their young. Today, all the condors find is trash. Believe it or not, the best solution researchers could come up with is electroshock therapy:
They snatch junk-food addicts from the wild and put them in a large cage at San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park. In the cage, the condors are given a choice. On one side is a dead animal, on the other, a smelly, electrified rubbish dump. If the condors try to pick up rubbish, they receive a shock. The researchers are hoping that the shocks will teach the birds not to eat from dumps and, more importantly, that the adult condors will in turn teach this information to their young.
Following "Micro-Trash Aversion Training", researchers now find that instead of trash, condors return to their nest with worn copies of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar
To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream. -- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Chapter 20
