Maria Montag, president of the Friends of California Condors, has always loved birds since she was growing up near Houston.
“Oh, as a kid, the hawks, raptors, fascinated me, yes, and then, we had turkey vultures. I grew up in Texas … and then, you know, to come out to California and see the biggest vulture in the New World family was, yeah, it was easy,” Montag said.
Friends of the California Condors hosted a presentation about the “thunderbird” at the Placerita Canyon Nature Center on Sunday afternoon.
One thing Montag wanted to share is that condors are very family oriented.
“The male and the female both … they can get a little upset with each other because the other one won’t get off the egg. Like, they want to be there, they want to be incubating, they want, you know, when the chick is born … the parents are flying back and forth foraging for food,” Montag said. “But once the chick is fed, like, the mom or dad will lay down and kind of just snuggle with the chick, right? Just, yeah, they just, they have emotions, right?”
During the presentation, Montag discussed many topics, including the preservation of condors, how they almost became extinct, the different ways they die and how they developed into the condors people are familiar with.
Andy Evans came with his mother, Val, because they have been taking care of birds in their backyard as of late.
Andy added that he also came because he was unaware of the history of the condor.
“I didn’t know the history of the condor and its conservation program. So that was good to learn about,” Andy said. “I didn’t know how low they got that it went down to like 20 or so birds. Yeah, well, one breeding pair? Yeah, so that’s crazy that they can come back from that.”
Val said she took a lot of photos of the presentation so she could remember everything she had learned.
She also echoed her son’s statement about not being aware of the condor almost being extinct.
“But yeah, I didn’t know how low the numbers had gone. And I knew about the lead. A lot of the other things (other causes of death impacting condors) I didn’t really know how much they were impacting,” Val said.
Andy said he also did not know they had a social hierarchy.
Terri Severn said she recalls hearing about the efforts to save the birds from extinction.
“I (have) always known about the condors. I remember being here in California when they were talking about taking them out of their nests and trying to revive the population,” Severn said.
Severn has always loved birds, too, being fond of red-tailed hawks and falcons. She said her grandkids call her “zoo grandma” because she always has animals around her.
When asked what she wanted to impress on her community, Severn said doing things like this is important.
“I think I want to impress on my kids, my community, is how important this is to do this. We have to protect them since we came to America and, you know, we populated it so much. We just drove out, not just the condors, but almost every species we have,” Severn said.
Helen Sweany, community nature series coordinator at the Nature Center, said she loves these events because they inspire people.
“It makes us be aware when we’re seeing animals (for) what they really are. For people who are interested in science, for people who are interested in learning from these animals … It’s finding out why these animals do what they do and how that can be applied into science today,” Sweany said.
