Five more condors fly over Northern California, thanks to a persistent tribe

From protecting redwoods to reclaiming the Klamath River from dams, the Yurok Tribe plays the long game for the environment

Five more critically endangered California condors are spreading their wings over Northern California due to a unique partnership between a tribe, a national park and several zoos.¹ Young, scraggly and fresh from a captive breeding program at the Los Angeles Zoo, they join 11 condors who were released in 2022 and 2023 to scavenge across ancestral Yurok land.

A California condor, the largest bird in North America, flies under a turkey vulture. National Park Service photo by Gavin Emmons.

These condors, known by the Yurok Tribe as prey-go-neesh, are flying further north than they’ve been in 100 years, over fog-drenched, old-growth redwoods and rivers that once swelled with salmon, where indigenous cultures consider them a part of their ecological and spiritual family. In doing so, they embody hope for a species that 40 years ago came brutally close to extinction, with only 27 birds remaining alive in 1987. Now, 350 roam wild.

The condors were released at a facility managed by the Yurok Tribe, which has gained much media attention in the past several years for its successful legal fight to tear town four aging dams on the Klamath River. Less attention has been devoted to the tribe’s other environmental successes, including its fostering of California condors.

A young California condor’s head is black for the first few years. Adults have signature bald pink heads. Photo by Jody Marx, Pixabay.

Answering the prayers of elders

“It is the answering of the prayers of our elders,” said Tiana Williams-Claussen, Yurok Wildlife Department Director, when the Yurok Tribe’s condor facility broke ground in 2021. “It’s reintroducing a part of our community … that’s been missing for so long. It’s making us whole again."

Speaking of elders, each year when it’s time to release youngsters, the Northern California Condor Restoration Program brings in an older male named Paaytoquin, who usually resides at the Oakland Zoo,² to serve as a mentor and provide a calming presence in a flight pen next to the release area. Hours go by as Paaytoquin primps and preens his regal black feathers while the 16-month-old newbies hop around, eyeing the vast stretches of redwood forest that they’ll call home from now on.

Before opening the gate, staff have waited for free-flying older birds to show up outside the pens to help encourage the juveniles to venture out. Each at their own pace, the birds tentatively waddle or flap awkwardly through the gate, where a fresh goat carcass awaits. Soon, they spread their wings in their first flights, proving their grace and strength.

Watch condors on the Yurok’s live feed. Free-flying birds have roamed for weeks at a time without returning to the hill on which the facility sits.

The Yurok began talking about bringing back prey-go-neesh in 2003. The tribe worked with the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to clear permitting hurdles. It took fourteen years.

Bringing the world into balance

For the Yurok, condors are not only important environmentally, but also spiritually. Throughout many cultures, carrion birds like condors are associated with the cycles of life and death, as thus renewal, rebirth and rebuilding. From Audubon in 2022:

In Yurok tradition, the tribe’s relationship with condors stretches back to the beginning of time. Condor feathers adorn regalia worn for world-renewal ceremonies, which also center the song of the condor—chosen by the Creator as the “most beautiful, the most powerful” song of all the animals, Williams-Clausen says. As the highest-flying bird in this part of the world, condors are believed to carry the prayers of Yurok dances intended to bring the world into balance.

Condors once ranged from Canada to Mexico but now are only found in the U.S. states of California, Utah and Arizona, as well as Northern Mexico, after a captive-breeding program launched in the 1980s saved the species from extinction. Expanding the range of this social bird and creating independent flocks is important for its long-term survivability: 21 condors died in Arizona last year from bird flu after the disease spread through that state’s flock of more than 100.

Adult California condor in San Benito County, California, where the Pinnacles National Park flock resides. Photo by Owen Bowie, inaturalist.org.

A tribe reclaims its land and ecosystem, one piece at a time

The Yurok Tribe’s relationship with the land and its many ecological components is rooted in the belief that humans are not outside of the natural world looking in, but rather an integral part of the ecosystem.

— Yurok Tribe Wildlife Department

The condor restoration program adds to a long list of recent environmental achievements by the Yurok Tribe:

• Tearing down four aging dams along the 257-mile-long Klamath River in order to restore salmon to historic levels. A massive fish kill in 2002, where 34,000 adult migrating king (chinook) salmon died of bacterial disease from too-warm water, brought this goal to the forefront for the tribe. Dam removal opened over 400 miles of spawning habitat along the Klamath’s tributaries.

• Restoring the Klamath River watershed: The tribe is leading restoration efforts in the now-empty reservoirs, planting 8.5 tons of seeds and 76,000 conifers in 2024.

• Reviving coastal prairies, including bringing back cultural burning to improve oak woodland and acorn yields, protect stream habitat, boost plants used in basketry and medicine, and create space for wildlife like elk.

• Preserving old-growth redwood: The Yurok have regrown their land base to over 100,000 acres using carbon offset trading.

  

  Roosevelt elk graze at Redwood National Park, which is ancestral Yurok territory and abuts current Yurok land holdings. National Park Service photo.

What was that about carbon offsets?

Although the Yurok are California’s largest indigenous tribe, at more than 6,000 enrolled members, they barely owned any land up until the last 15 years. A reservation was formed in 1855 on 55,000 acres abutting the Klamath River from its mouth at the Pacific to the fork of the Trinity River, but the land was later distributed to settlers while tribal members suffered persecution and genocide.

A turning point for the Yurok Tribe came in 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Mattz v. Arnett that tribe member Raymond Mattz’s gill nets were illegally confiscated by a state game warden who did not have jurisdiction over Indian Country, a decision which not only affirmed the tribe’s fishing rights, but also its sovereignty over its original reservation lands. Yet those lands were still privately owned, much of it by timber companies.

The federal government recognized the Yurok in 1986 and provided a land grant of 5,000 acres.

The Yurok then resolved to do everything in their power to get their land back. They secured a loan in 2011 to buy 32,000 acres of old-growth redwood and stream habitat. The intention was to sustainably log this land, but California’s brand new cap-and-trade policy allowed them to sell carbon credits³ instead. They then used the carbon credits to pay off the loan and buy more land.⁴

Map of traditional Yurok territory defined in black from “Yurok Geography” by Thomas Talbot Waterman (1920). Additional place labels by Amanda Royal.

From Yes! magazine:

Participation in the program has been a huge success for the Yurok. With income from the offset program, the Yurok have paid off loans from their previous watershed purchases; supported youth programming, housing, and road improvement … . They have also been able to buy back tens of thousands of acres of their traditional territory, which has had a powerful impact on the tribal nation.

This year, CalTrout announced 125 acres of restored stream and floodplain would be transferred to tribal management. The land, called ’O Rew, will serve as another entry point to Redwood National Park. This site was once home to the Orick Mill, where redwoods were once cut into lumber for sale. Extensive restoration took place over the last several years to daylight the creek and create wild salmon-rearing habitat. The site will host a Yurok village of traditional redwood plank houses (once again, the Yurok asserting, “We are an integral part of this land.”)⁵

Step-by-step, the Yurok are re-creating every corner of an ecosystem where salmon once thrived and fed their people for millennia. Last weekend, they celebrated their 60th Salmon Festival, in which they honored the elders who fought hard for these successes. From a tribe press release:

Through dam removal and restoration, the Yurok Tribe is confident that the Klamath’s salmon runs will recover. Right now, there is more positive momentum on the Klamath than ever before.

The mouth of the Klamath River, where it meets the Pacific Ocean. Nearly a million salmon once ran the river each fall. That number has fallen 90 percent. Photo by Jennifer Silveira/US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Final notes on condors:

With a 10-foot wingspan, condors are the largest bird in North America. California condors now number over 500, with a third of that consisting of the captive-breeding population that spans several zoos and rehab centers. Though named after California, North American condors once flew as far east as Florida during human habitation, according to archeological sites.

Condor numbers had already declined drastically by the 1960s, with lead poisoning, overhunting, the egg-thinning pesticide DDT and electrocution by power lines all playing a role. The last wild California condor was captured in 1987 in Southern California after all six nearby birds died over one winter.

Lead poisoning remains the leading cause of death in condors. This spring, Zion National Park’s first wild condor died from lead poisoning, despite $50 of free copper bullets provided to every registered hunter in the surrounding area. Last year, the first wild meal of the young condors at the Yurok facility resulted in lead poisoning (they were sent to Oakland Zoo for chelation therapy and made a full recovery). Lead bullets were not banned in California until 2019.

How you can support condor conservation:

Visit Condor Conservation: How You Can Help.

Spread the word about using copper bullets instead of lead to protect condors, eagles and other scavengers. Lead bullets also pose a danger to humans who ingest hunted meat.

(Earth Hope has no affiliation with the Yurok Tribe or any condor conservation organization.)

“It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection.”

― Voltaire

More headlines about conservation and iconic birds

From Southern England, spoonbills return to an area they haven’t been spotted since the 17th century: Spoonbill chicks make triumphant return to wetlands following crucial conservation efforts.

Spoonbill reflecting. Photo by Ruth H Curtis on Unsplash

From Austria, the northern bald ibis has recovered to 300 birds thanks to captive breeding program launched in 2002: This bird species was extinct in Europe. Now it’s back, and humans must help it migrate for winter.

Northern bald ibis. Photo by Stanislav Ferrao on Unsplash

And finally, from the BBC, yes all this work is paying off: Conservation slowing biodiversity loss, scientists say.

👍🏿👍🏼👍🏾👍🏽👍

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Recent headlines from Earth Hope:

Tahoe’s sandhill cranes show wetland restoration is working
Connecting the dots on why a threatened, marsh-loving bird might choose a region that has spent $3 billion in four decades on its environment

How paying farmers saved the tricolored blackbird

Conservation takes a village

Claim your square of this planet

Coming up: I know this condor story makes three bird stories in a row (actually, the stories were about tribal stewardship, wetland restoration and market-based solutions to environmental problems🤪). Stay tuned for articles on turtles, toads and tortoises, plus reforestation, rivers and water that are currently in the hopper!

About Earth Hope:

Earth Hope is a solutions-based journalism project that highlights environmental success stories from around the globe, because hope is the foundation of progress. We examine solutions to the world’s pressing environmental issues. Consuming bad news is important, but we should also remind ourselves frequently that progress happens every day.

About me:

I’m Amanda Royal, a former newspaper reporter who covered wildfires, invasive species, water quality, wildlife and other environmental topics in California and Nevada (while writing under my maiden name and byline Amanda Fehd). The pseudonym “Earth” was a bit accidental. It grew on me quickly, so I thought I’d keep it for a while.

1. As of press time, two of five birds had flown free. Three are still awaiting their moment.

2. Oakland Zoo is the only place I have seen a condor in person. The aviary allows a very close view, which is a privilege. I was floored by his size, beauty and stately presence. Pictures don’t quite capture how, for a carrion bird, condor feathers are in fact incredibly clean, silky and shiny. The fluffy collar of black tendrils around his pink neck reminded me of a medieval ruff that would have been worn by a prince. Despite his “I will happily eat you when you’re dead” stare, it was love at first sight.

3. Carbon offsets, as defined by Merriam-Webster, are:
1. an action or activity (such as the planting of trees or carbon sequestration) that compensates for the emission of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere
2. a quantifiable amount of such an activity that may be bought, sold, or traded especially as part of a system to reduce pollutants in the atmosphere

Cap-and-trade, definition by Merriam-Webster, is: a system that caps the amount of carbon emissions a given company may produce but allows it to buy rights to produce additional emissions from a company that does not use the equivalent amount of its own allowance

4. I’m among those who believe carbon offsets, when done right, are an important tool in our toolbox to save the planet.

5. In my personal observation, the National Park Service is the federal agency that fosters relationships with U.S. tribes more than any other. Our national parks are heavily visited by millions of people who come and go quite quickly, sometimes irresponsibly, and who don’t usually have a stake in the future of that park. Tribes, meanwhile, care deeply about their ancestral lands and the NPS is finding they are excellent partners, stewards and historians. I suspect this approach also helps the federal government meet its complex treaty obligations with many tribal nations. This topic fits snugly into my recent story, Conservation takes a village.