For a century, they were gone. But California Condors are making a comeback in these parts of the Bay Area

The elusive and illustrious California Condor is making a major comeback in the Bay Area stretching its wings in areas where the continent s largest bird has not been seen for more than a century In total the Ventana Wildlife Society a group that traps breeds and rehabilitates the vultures for release into the wild has tracked different condors that took multiple trips to parts of Alameda and Contra Costa counties sometime in the past two years These movements into Alameda County and even Contra Costa County are the first to be documented in over years Kelly Sorenson Ventana s executive director reported in an interview It s not just one bird here and there it s the whole flock expanding their range both north and south A -year-old male condor known as appears to be leading the flock s exploration into new territory taking over trips into the East Bay since as he reaches breeding age and starts looking for grounds to potentially mate in announced Sorenson who called him a pioneer The deepest documented trip into the East Bay happened in when a female condor flew from Pinnacles National Park east of the Salinas Valley passed Livermore and made it near Mount Diablo before returning home to Pinnacles Those sightings and more latest ones including on Sept when two condors spent the evening in the mountains just south of San Antonio Reservoir in the Sunol Regional Wilderness are part of a growing presence of the large land bird in the East Bay There s a lot of disappointment that goes into the condors story but just the mere fact that we re talking about the possibility of seeing condors in the East Bay is pretty miraculous mentioned Joseph Belli a biologist and condor expert who participants with the National Park Operation and Ventana Historically the birds which grow to be as large as -plus pounds with a wingspan over nine feet flew freely throughout the West Coast into British Columbia in the s In the s the birds population dwindled to less than The greater part died from manmade poisons By the early s every condor known to man was whisked away to captivity to save them from extinction In there were just condors left on the planet The birds just now seen in the Bay Area are concentrated in nests throughout Central California Beginning in Ventana has annually circulated condors into the wild starting in Big Sur then expanding to Pinnacles National Park in before the National Park Institution started its own release project Since then the flock has grown to about condors with another expected release happening on Oct near San Simeon The entire population of condors in the wild now totals less than about according to experts which includes another flock of over birds in Southern California one smaller flock of about or condors in Northern California near Eureka and less than condors between Northern Arizona and the Mexican state of Baja California They can fly miles in a day but normally return the majority days to their home base Though they are sociable birds condors generally stay in the same flock most of of their lives and like to fly in small groups The new flight expansion depicts a small but mighty enhancement in the decades-long effort to rescue them from the brink of extinction experts say Belli the biologist commented in an interview that it is the younger condors that have flown further north to explore Alameda County from nests in Central California possibly due to the longer and warmer days of the mid-summer months But for the average bird enthusiast they can be incredibly hard to spot Finding a condor in the wild usually involves hikes high along mountains with thousands of feet of elevation as they like to soar and glide high rather than flap their wings between mountain ranges To track them conservationists and biologists like Belli use GPS and radio trackers daily Despite all of the encouraging signs in latest months scientists have not let their guard down No one can change the fact that condors reproduce more slowly than other animals One condor lays just one single egg roughly every two years spending at least a year hatching and raising their chick before hatching another But something can and must be done about manmade threats that have harmed the population in California for generations experts say A century ago the poisoning of wolves grizzly bears and other predators by early pioneers led to a higher death rate among the scavenger birds that ate poisoned carcasses In current times s flocks face another menace lead ammunition In a year after taking her historic spin around Mount Diablo condor died of lead poisoning leaving behind her nest partner a condor named Ninja according to Ventana Conservationists with Ventana have been working on a response For years they have been swapping unleaded ammunition made with materials such as copper or steel with championship hunters and ranchers in the hopes of saving more condors from ingesting a lethal poison pill in their next meal Keeping them alive is kind of a challenge Belli noted That s allegedly the biggest obstacle for getting their numbers up Belli commented just a sparse condors die every year now as conservationists keep a close eye on them but the biggest fresh hit to their populations came with the Dolan wildfire in the Big Sur region that led to the deaths of condors While the news of chosen condors traveling further into the East Bay can look exciting the reality is that unless the population grows substantially bigger Belli noted I don t know how much further that movement is going to go Still Sorenson says he hopes that he can look back in another years when I m retired and I can hear about condors all over the state