Dave Monley, Ventana Wildlife Society

What has a wingspan of 10 feet, weighs in at 22 pounds, and until recently faced likely extinction? The California condor, the largest land bird in North America.

The Oakland Museum of California presents a compelling look at Gymnogyps californianus in Bringing the Condors Home, Saturday, December 16, 2006 through April 15, 2007. The traveling exhibition was organized by the Ventana Wildlife Society, whose 20-year effort to restore the endangered species, with the help of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has the California condor flying wild again.

Bringing the Condors Home highlights this singular bird and the technology, research efforts, and people working to save it from extinction. When the last wild condor joined 26 others in captivity, in 1987, its future looked grim. Today there are 138 condors in the wild, 61 in California.

John James Audubon, “California Vulture (Old Male),” n.d. Hand-colored aquatint on paper, 33 x 25 inches. Museum Donors’ Acquisition Fund.

The exhibition explains condor biology, behavior, and life history through interpretive panels and a 360° walk-in panorama of a condor habitat. Bringing the Condors Home also presents a video of condors in the wild, condor computer games and quizzes for kids and adults, and a mounted condor with egg and skull from the museum collection.

Visitors can learn about the critical issues threatening the condors’ survival and get an inside look at condor conservation and recovery efforts, including field techniques, captive breeding, and release and monitoring programs.

On Thursday, January 18, at 12:30 p.m. Joe Burnett, senior wildlife biologist at the Ventana Wildlife Society, discusses field efforts to restore condors tothe wild in Big Sur and the Pinnacles National Monument. The lecture is free.

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