Zoo Condors Produce Egg Late in Season
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A pair of endangered California condors at the Los Angeles Zoo produced an egg much later than usual for the breeding season, and zoo officials are crediting El Nino, a curator said Friday.
“Blame it on El Nino,” said Mike Wallace, the zoo’s curator of birds. “Cooler weather increases their activity, warmer weather shuts them down reproductively. We really haven’t had warm weather this spring.”
The egg, from birds named Mandan and Tama, was laid May 3. It was the latest date in the breeding season that a condor has laid an egg in the 20 years that researchers have monitored the birds in captivity and the wild.
The egg has been removed for artificial incubation, and the pair was given a dummy egg, Wallace said. The real egg will be returned to the parents when it hatches.
There are 144 California condors left in the world, up from 27 in 1987, Wallace said.
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