{"id":112958,"date":"2015-04-16T21:37:16","date_gmt":"2015-04-17T03:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/a-wandering-condor\/"},"modified":"2015-04-16T21:37:16","modified_gmt":"2015-04-17T03:37:16","slug":"a-wandering-condor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/a-wandering-condor\/","title":{"rendered":"A wandering condor?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"This
This California condor was spotted April 16 near Summit Ridge, south of Dolores, by Franz Carver, a seasonal ranger at Mesa Verde National Park. The condor was feared dead by officials at the Grand Canyon National Park.<\/span>Franz Carver\/For The Cortez Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A rare California condor from near Grand Canyon National Park that was \u201cmissing and feared dead\u201d was photographed Thursday south of Dolores by seasonal park ranger Franz Carver.<\/p>\n

Carver, who drives around looking for birds on his days off, spotted the California condor on Thursday, April 16, in the Summit Ridge area.<\/p>\n

At first, he thought it was a common buzzard.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw this bird and thought it was a turkey vulture, but thought that it was too big,\u201d Carver said.<\/p>\n

So Carver, who describes himself as an amateur photographer who loves birds, stopped to take some photographs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI probably took 15 to 20 shots,\u201d he said. \u201cI thanked the bird for being so cooperative.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until he downloaded the photographs that he saw a tag that read \u201cN8\u201d on the bird\u2019s wing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I knew it was a condor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Carver quickly did some research and found a list of birds on the Grand Canyon National Park\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

It turns out that N8, also known as bird 680, is a 2-year-old male. The park listed him as \u201cmissing and feared dead\u201d in February.<\/p>\n

Carver informed Grand Canyon National Park and Janice Stroud-Settles, a park biologist.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was pretty exciting to hear he made it over to Colorado,\u201d Stroud-Settles said. \u201cWe\u2019ve heard reports of our birds in Colorado before, but we have never had photographic proof.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carver lives near Reno when he isn\u2019t working at the Mesa Verde National Park Visitors Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the most exciting bird I have seen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The California condor is the largest North American land bird, with a wing-span of 9.8 feet. They went extinct in the wild in 1987 and were reintroduced in northern Arizona and southern Utah after being bred in captivity. They are the rarest bird species, numbering about 425 today.<\/p>\n

When Carver downloaded the pictures, he said he was shaking and couldn\u2019t believe it.<\/p>\n

Stroud-Settles said the lifespan of a California condor is 60 to 70 years, but the park has never had any live that long. They are the longest-living bird in the world. Their population declined because of poaching, poisoning and habitat destruction.<\/p>\n

The Grand Canyon population was first introduced in 1996. There are currently 71 birds in the park, Stroud-Settles said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey come and go between Arizona and Utah, and now Colorado,\u201d Stroud-Settles said. \u201cOccasionally we do hear of sightings (in Colorado). We rarely get the pictures to go with it, so we are sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

N8 was released in the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument near the Grand Canyon in June. He was raised in the San Diego Wild Animal Park.<\/p>\n

Stroud-Settles said few of their birds have GPS transmitters, but N8 has one and apparently went out of contact.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome say there has been reports of them all the way up to Wyoming,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Chris Parish, condor field project supervisor with the Peregrine Fund, monitors the condors by GPS and was happy to learn of N8\u2019s spotting.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously that is great news,\u201d he said on a phone.<\/p>\n

Parish said the birds have been spotted as far north as the Flaming Gorge in Wyoming. Juveniles may wander, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had them in your neck of the woods before, but it\u2019s not common,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Parish said that because the bird flew out of the Grand Canyon area, it was feared missing, but after he downloaded the bird\u2019s activity from a GPS device, N8\u2019s itnerary became clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe traveled 642 miles total in nine days,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Then, the condor took off again and spent the night near the New Mexico border, Parish said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not uncommon to lose contact of birds, Parish said, especially in the spring when fronts blow through, allowing birds to take extended trips.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a lot farther east than we had ever recorded that bird going,\u201d Parish said.<\/p>\n

The day before N8 was spotted south of Dolores, Parish said, data showed that the bird was north of Monticello, Utah.<\/p>\n

On April 14, Parish said N8 traveled 160 miles in one day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen them fly as much as 200 miles plus in a single day. It all depends on the wind,\u201d Parish said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Canyon\u2019s missing condor appears in a photo from Cortez<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":112959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,603],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-112958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-wildlife"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112958"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=112958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}