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THE CONDORS’ LAST STAND
U.S. sets up 10,0000-acre California refuge for 60 remaining birds
The seven ugly birds crouched on a rocky ledge (above) are one of the rarest sights in nature. They are California condors, the world's largest flying land birds, dying relics of the Ice Age. When America was discovered, they were probably plentiful but now only 60 remain. Hidden away in the gorges of California's Los Padres National Forest, the unprolific condor, which lays only one egg in four years, is easily frightened. It took Photographers Harrison and Roberts 10 years of effort to get the pictures on this and the following pages. Sometimes a stranger a half mile away will keep a keen-sighted bird from its home for several days and cause its helpless fledgling to die.
Last year oilmen threatened to move in on the condors with noisy drills and naturalists were sure this amounted to a death sentence for the birds. But this year the Department of the Interior gave the birds a reprieve. In a 25,000-acre area of the forest only limited drilling would be allowed, and no drilling at all would be permitted in a 10,000-acre area where, free from man, the condor may yet manage to survive.
MORE THAN ON E TENTH of all condors in the U.S., seven out of 60, are shown on California ledge.
CONDOR EGGS, laid on open ground instead of in nests, are sometimes abandoned by skittish birds.
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