Really good front-page news from the Monterey Herald -- an egg has been spied in a nest of young California condors living in the Pinnacles Mts., far away from the site of the endangered species into the environment in Ventura county about two decades ago.
In other words, the species appears to be re-establishing itself in California, after a near-brush with extinction.
Biologists at Pinnacles National Monument are celebrating the first condor egg laid by a mating pair inside the park boundaries in more than a century.What really makes the story is the picture that goes with it, which is just so cool. Makes one want to be a condor, just to be able to live in a beautiful aerie far far above the madding crowd.The egg marks the latest encouraging development in the slow recovery of the endangered flying giants in the regions they historically inhabited. The effort has been hampered by hunters and lead poisoning of the birds.
A female released in 2004 in the park that straddles Monterey and San Benito counties, and a male released the same year 30 miles west at Big Sur, had been observed engaged in courtship behavior earlier this year, park spokesman Carl Brenner said.
"They are now the proud parents of a small egg," Brenner said.
Almost. Still kinda like being a human, despite my species' flaws.
