Trash-eating condor chick found dead

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – A California condor chick that was part of an ambitious breeding program was found dead near its nest, the week after another was discovered with a broken wing and 35 bottle caps in its gullet.

The dead chick also had trash in its stomach, and the cause of death was unclear, said Mike Wallace, team leader for the California Condor Recovery Program.

The bird – one of only five babies among the 101 wild condors in California, Arizona and Baja California – was found Tuesday 20 feet below its nest in the Los Padres National Forest.

The injured chick, found in the same forest last week, had surgery Monday at the Los Angeles Zoo to pin its broken wing and remove the more than half-pound of garbage.

Wallace said the chicks may be eating trash because of an instinct to eat hard objects to help with digestion. Condors also eat bone chips for calcium, he said.

“We’re upset because we don’t like looking at dead chicks, but overall we’re on the right track,” Wallace said, referring to the overall results of the program.

There are nearly 150 other birds in captivity, and the total California condor population has increased tenfold since the captive breeding program began in the 1980s.