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Return of the Condor is a riveting account of one of the most dramatic attempts to save a species from extinction in the history of modern conservation.
The California condor, North America's largest bird, lives 50 years or more, is highly intelligent, often mates for life, can fly 150 miles in a day, and was believed by Native Americans to have supernatural powers. But its strength and endurance were not enough to save it from near-extinction. Human greed and ignorance caused the great bird's decline. Human ingenuity and insight became its only hope.
Down to only twenty-two individuals in the 1980s, the condor owes its survival and recovery to a remarkable team of scientists who flouted conventional wisdom and pursued the most controversial means to save it. Conservationists and scientists have fought what at times has seemed a quixotic battle to save the species. Theirs is a story of passion, courage, and bitter controversy, one that created a national debate over how to save America's largest bird.
Return of the Condor chronicles this epic story. We meet Jan Hamber, the biologist who made the agonizing decision to capture AC9, the young male who was the last living wild condor; Carl Koford, the brilliant scientist whose flawed conclusions delayed a captive-breeding program until it was almost too late; and two of the condors whose survival was critical, including AC9 himself. There is tragedy and triumph in their stories. Today, condors are more numerous and far easier to see than at any time in the past century, and their expanding territory is home to millions of Americans. For America's 52 million birders and anyone who cares about saving our natural heritage, this inspiring story shows what happens when we commit ourselves to working with nature instead of against it.
"Pulling the California condor back from the brink of extinction has been difficult and expensive. But this fine book by John Moir makes abundantly clear why preserving magnificent beings like our once-more wild condors is one of twenty-first-century society's more important obligations."
-Alan Tennant author of On The Wing: To The Edge Of The Earth With The Peregrine Falcon
About the author
By John Moir
