The Yurok Tribe has spearheaded an effort in conjunction with the National Park Service and US Fish and Wildlife Service to establish a condor restoration program and release facility in Redwood National Park, to return condors to their historical range in Yurok Ancestral Territory, where they have not been seen for more than a century. We shouldn’t have to tell you this, but just in case: this is fantastic and EPIC wholeheartedly supports condor reintroduction. As part of the
project, five public scoping meetings will be held this month in northern California and Oregon to receive input on the California Condor Restoration Plan/Environmental Assessment, including one in Eureka on January 26th.
Background
Since time immemorial, the Yurok Tribe has viewed the condor as a sacred animal, using their feathers and singing their songs in the World Renewal ceremony. As part of the Yurok Tribe’s obligation to heal the world, and return balance to Yurok Ancestral Territory, returning the condor to the region is spiritually and biologically imperative.
The California condor is the largest North American land bird primarily found in rocky shrub land, coniferous forests, and oak savannas. Condors are a keystone species, because their sharp beaks allow them to tear into tough skins of large mammalian carcasses that other scavengers cannot break down. Although fossil evidence shows that condors were once prevalent across North America, the end of the last glacial period reduced their range to the American Southwest and West Coast. In 1967 the species was federally listed as endangered, and in 1971 it was listed as an endangered species by the State of California. By 1987, habitat destruction, poaching and lead poisoning pushed wild condors into extinction, when all 22 remaining wild individuals were caught and put into captive breeding programs and in December 2015, the US Fish and Wildlife Service recorded a total population of 435 condors, consisting of 268 wild and 167 captive individuals.
Public Meetings
January 23: Sacramento, CA 6-8pm at the Federal Building, 2800 Cottage Way
January 24: Eureka, CA 6-8pm at the Wharfinger Building, 1 Marina Way
January 25: Klamath, CA 10am-12pm at the Yurok Tribal Office, 190 Klamath Blvd
January 25: Medford, OR 6-8pm at the Jackson County Auditorium, 7520 Table Rock Road, Central Point Oregon
January 26: Portland, OR 6-8pm at the Oregon Zoo, 4001 SW Canyon Road
How to Comment
Public scoping comments will be accepted until February 28, 2017 and can be submitted at the meetings or you can click here to submit comments online. Comments will be used to determine the scope of environmental issues and alternatives that will be addressed in the subsequent Environmental Assessment, which is scheduled to be released in summer of 2017. We encourage our members to support the program and highlight the importance of bringing the condor back to the Pacific Northwest by ensuring that the species has the habitat and protections necessary to reestablish their populations in the region.