Caring for the California Condor
Biology senior helps save endangered species

By Teresa Mariani Hendrix

Biology senior Jamie Miller is a big bird fan.

Not the Sesame Street Muppet, but the California condor. With its nearly 10-foot wingspan, the endangered species is the largest bird in the Western Hemisphere.

Its wing feathers, Miller points out, are the length of her en¬tire arm. “They’re not cuddly. They’re basically large vultures. But they’re very, very impressive.”

Miller has been volunteering with the California Condor Re¬covery Project for the past two years. The catch-and-release cap¬tive breeding program is credited with bringing the state’s wild condor population back from the brink of extinction, with only about 10 known birds in 1979 to some 125 today.

Most weekends, Miller and a handful of Cal Poly students and other volunteers can be found at Hi Mountain Lookout, 14 miles east of campus as the crow – or condor – flies, but a solid hour’s drive on a winding narrow road.

Every California condor is tagged with a radio transmit¬ter, and the volunteers take hourly signal readings to track the birds between Big Sur in Monterey County and Hopper Mountain in Ventura County.

During a summer internship at Hi Mountain, Miller tracked 56 condors. “It’s an awe-inspiring sight,” she says, “when a pre¬historic-looking bird with a 10-foot wingspan slowly, grace¬fully circles the tower and Hi Mountain, curiously watching the humans studying them.”

Miller wants to pursue a career in wildlife conservation bi¬ology when she graduates next year. She’s already done an in¬ternship on the “Big Island” of Hawaii, netting, measuring and taking blood samples from rain forest birds in a study of avian malaria. She’s currently counting kangaroo rats on the Nipomo Mesa for her senior project. And she’s also recruiting more Cal Poly students for the Hi Mountain condor recovery project.

It’s peaceful, it’s beautiful, and it’s important, she stresses. “When I’m up there taking signals, I know I’m contributing to the recov¬ery of the condor. The information is useful for the agencies help¬ing them. And the condors still need a lot of help. They’re better off than they were 20 years ago, but they have a long way to go.”

For details on the Hi Mountain Lookout California Condor Recovery Project station, visit www.condorlookout.org.