World watches rare moment of a condor egg hatching in the wild

[Female condor protects egg / Flickr]

Biologists from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service are hoping that a rare live stream of a California condor chick hatching will help raise awareness about the endangered birds.

For the first time in history, biologists set up cameras in a cliff side nest at Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge in Ventura Country, California, to capture a condor egg hatch in the wild, according to a news release.

“This live cam takes the viewer right into the nest cave with the condors to watch their behavior and hear the sounds they make,” Charles Eldermire, Bird Cams manager at the Cornell Lab, said in the news release.

“We hope it will really raise awareness about these spectacular but highly endangered birds and the threats they face. We know from past experience that people form a real emotional connection to the birds they see on the cams as they witness a part of nature they’ve never seen before,” he added.

Condor are the largest land bird in North America, known for feeding on carcasses of large mammals, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service website.

Ever since the condor population has dramatically dropped and the federal government listed condors as endangered species, all remaining wild condors were placed into a captive breeding program. This marked the beginning of an intensive recovery program to save them from extinction, according to the website.

The parents of the newly hatched chick are known as condor no. 111 and condor no. 509. They have been courting each other since the fall of 2014 and had their first egg back in April 2015. Sadly, their first chick died of lead poisoning, which is a “harsh reality of man-made threats condors continue to face in the wild,” according to the news release.

The egg that hatched on Monday wasn’t the same one laid by the parents. Instead, the egg was incubated after their egg went missing in March.

Biologists wanted to ensure the pair continued to sit on the nest so they replaced the missing egg with a dummy one. Then a captive-bred egg was placed into the nest.

“We’re eager and excited to not only be able to share this experience with the world, but also open up the opportunity for more people to learn about California condors, what makes them such remarkable birds, and draw attention to the very real threats they face in the wild,” Joseph Brandt, condor biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said in the news release.

Since the captive breeding program, the California condor population has grown to about 430 birds worldwide.