The Valley Sentinel_February 2022

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always for the community VOL 29 NO 2

February 2022

www.valleysentinel.com

SPOTLIGHT

Taking Action over misinformation at Rancho Romero By Greg Bernard

With many students newly returning to school in-person this semester, both students and parents remain uncertain of what preventative measures to take. To combat misinformation and help prevent unnecessary spread of the virus, one local teacher is taking action.

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Bringing the California Condor back from the edge of extinction, has been a phenomenal effort. The numbers had dwindled down to just twenty two individuals, and has now reached 400 birds. All are fitted with radio transmitters, and last year one had ventured north to Mount Diablo. This was the first known visit to Contra Costa County in over 100 years. Read on for tis exciting story in full! Photo: Wendy Miller / CC BY-NC-ND

Returning the California Condor to the Northern Diablo Range With a wingspan of almost 10 feet, the California condor is the largest land bird in North America. Several hundred years ago, it was found frequently across California’s landscape. Yet by the 20th century, the California condor disappeared from the Diablo region, and almost went extinct. Last year, a California condor visited the Mount Diablo region. This was the first recording of the bird in Contra Costa County in more than a hundred years. We recently awarded a grant to the Pinnacles Condor Recovery Program to better understand condors’ recovery in the Diablo Range. There’s good reason to think the Diablo Range is playing a critical role in the return of this endangered species, emphasizing the need to preserve one of California’s least protected mountain ranges. More Phoenix Than Condor The recovery of the California

condor is one of the most famous success stories in conservation history, and for good reason. The plight of the California condor began, unsurprisingly, because of human impacts. Lead poisoning, habitat destruction, pollution, poaching, and other factors all led to a dwindling population. The condor nearly went extinct. In 1987, the last remaining birds were captured for protection. Elizabeth Kolbert describes the incredible effort that went into saving the species in her Pulitzer Prize–winning book, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History: “By the mid-nineteeneighties the population of California condors had dwindled to just twenty-two individuals. To rescue the species—the

largest land bird in North America—wildlife biologists raised condor chicks using puppets. They created fake power lines to train the birds not to electrocute themselves; to teach them not to eat trash, they wired garbage to deliver a mild shock. They vaccinated every single condor—today there are about four hundred—against West Nile virus, a disease, it’s worth noting, for which a human vaccine has yet to be developed. They routinely test the birds for lead poisoning— condors that scavenge deer carcasses often ingest lead shot—and they have treated many of them with chelation therapy. Several condors have been taken in for chelation more than once.” Today, there are more than 500 condors living both in and outside of captivity. Like a

This Month’s Special Section:

Seniors page 8

phoenix, the condor came back from virtually nothing. Instead of rising from the ashes, they returned with the helping hands of conservationists. Tracking Condors within the Diablo Range In 2021, a California condor visited the Mount Diablo region for the first time in over 100 years—an event that received a great deal of regional attention. The flight path of Condor 828 showed it circling around the eastern flanks of Mount Diablo before returning south to Pinnacles National Park. Condor 828 came from the Pinnacles Condor Recovery Program. All their condors are outfitted with a visual ID tag and a radio transmitter, but only some are given GPS transmitters. See CONDOR page 9


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