Condor To the Brink And Back-The Life And Times of One Giant Bird

The California condor, with a wingspan of nine-and-a-half feet and a history as old as the Redwoods, should be extinct by now. It should not be soaring over the Grand Canyon, Big Sur, and south-central California. It should not be breeding like a machine in zoos. It should be a bitter memory. Fifteen years ago, there were only twenty-seven California condors left in the world, and they were all in zoos, where none had even tried to reproduce. The effort to save this bird had come to resemble a bar fight, in which environmentalists, scientists, and bureaucrats injured themselves and the species they were trying to save. It was embarrassing at best. Yet the condor has survived somehow. It has sailed past the brink of extinction, turned a broad circle in the sky, and returned to the wild again. The story of how this happened is more than the story of an endangered bird with an amazing wingspan. It is also the story of a wild and giant state that has become crowded and small, and the behind-the-scenes dramas that shaped the environmental movement.Nielsen, John is the author of 'Condor To the Brink And Back-The Life And Times of One Giant Bird', published 2007 under ISBN 9780060088637 and ISBN 006008863X.