Towheeblog

Click here to read about two nestling California Condors at the Grand Canyon.  There are now 500 condors alive, compared to the near-extinction levels three decades ago when there were only 22 left on earth.

In 1805 Reuben Field, a member of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, shot and killed a California Condor along the Northwest Coast.  This was at Cape Disappointment at the north side of the Columbia River where it meets the Pacific. The site is now a Washington state park.Earlier they had seen one about the river in the Columbia Gorge but were unable to shoot it down.
Finally, in early 1806, they wounded one which was brought alive into Fort Clatsop where the expedition over-wintered.
Clark wrote, “…when he approached this Vulture after wounding it, that it made a noise very much like the barking of a Dog…”

There is no evidence the birds ever nested this far north but it would have been an easy soar from California’s Central Valley or north coast for a bird that size.  We do know they often dine on the large carcasses of dead sea mammals that wash ashore.

The Yoruk tribe in northern California is working to have condors reintroduced on their lands.  If this happens it is likely that traveling condors will begin to appear in the skies over Oregon once more.