Condor quantity 1139 gawked at his enclosure’s open door, seemingly uncertain what to make of it. He hesitated for a number of minutes. Then he stepped into the brink, stretched out his nine-foot wingspan, and flapped clumsily just a few ft all the way down to the bottom. 

“Typically they go proper out, generally they don’t. We’re on condor time,” mentioned Joe Burnett, condor program supervisor on the Ventana Wildlife Society, which operates the central California condor launch website, nestled within the mountainous chaparral alongside the coast. 

On Tuesday, 1139 and 5 different juvenile California condors that acquired the avian influenza vaccine took their first flaps out of captivity from a launch website at San Simeon on California’s Central Coast. This 12 months’s rookies are the primary birds within the U.S. to obtain vaccines towards the most recent pressure of avian influenza, which has devastated fowl populations throughout the globe and killed a minimum of 8,000 recorded wild birds throughout the nation. Vaccinating captive-bred condors is the most recent conservation effort within the decades-long quest to avoid wasting the long-lasting endangered species from extinction. 

“Within the 26 years I’ve been doing this, I actually haven’t been extra nervous than this 12 months, due to the mixture of lead poisoning and avian influenza,” mentioned Kelly Sorenson, government director on the Ventana Wildlife Society, an area raptor conservation nonprofit. 

Chicken flu has hit these birds arduous

California condors almost went extinct just a few a long time in the past, however have been recovering with shut medical supervision and captive breeding applications. Whereas the general California condor inhabitants has rebounded again to over 500 people complete, they’re break up between captive birds and wild flocks in northern, central, southern and Baja California, in addition to Arizona. Nonetheless, lead poisoning from ammunition in carcasses that condors scavenge and different threats proceed to thwart conservation efforts. Condors are social creatures, dwelling in elaborate hierarchies and gathering in teams to roost, feast upon carcasses, and groom one another—which may contribute to spreading the avian influenza virus amongst one another. 

Final spring, 21 condors within the Arizona flock—almost one-fifth of it—died from avian influenza over three weeks. Condor conservationists feared one other outbreak may very well be catastrophic. Within the spring of 2023, the US Fish and Wildlife Service utilized to the US Division of Agriculture for emergency approval of a vaccine that might provide condors some safety. 

“No birds have ever been allowed to be vaccinated in the US earlier than—poultry or in any other case—as a result of there are a number of commerce implications for agriculture,” mentioned Samantha Gibbs, lead veterinarian for the Wildlife Well being Workplace on the US Fish and Wildlife Service. (Permitting avian influenza vaccinations in poultry may provoke bans on exports to different international locations, largely on account of fears that vaccination may masks the presence of the illness.) “To my shock, they mentioned sure.”

Vaccine trials for an endangered species? Tough

Pharmaceutical firms and the USDA develop vaccines for animal illnesses like avian influenza behind the scenes, simply in case they’ve to make use of them, based on Gibbs. The vaccine given to condors this 12 months was constructed from a pressure of avian influenza that ravaged the poultry business in 2014–2015, and it was already within the USDA’s stockpile.

However the firm that developed the vaccine, Zoetis, designed it in case of demand for home and zoo birds, not wild or endangered species. To ensure this vaccine was as protected as attainable for condors, US Fish and Wildlife Service scientists first examined it in black vultures, that are intently associated (California condors are a type of vulture).

Then condor trials started. One group of condors acquired a single dose, whereas one other group acquired two half doses three weeks aside. In line with preliminary outcomes from the trial, 60 p.c of the condors given two separate doses made sufficient antibodies to be considerably protected against dying from the virus, and 10 p.c made sufficient antibodies to be totally protected. In regular vaccine trials that don’t contain an endangered species, the vaccine recipients are contaminated on objective afterwards to check how a lot it protects them from illness and demise.

“For apparent causes, we’re not going to do this with the condors,” mentioned Gibbs. 

With out that ‘problem trial’, the vaccine’s effectiveness will basically be examined within the wild. Condor conservationists must wait and  see whether or not any of the vaccinated condors develop into sick or die.

As of the top of November, 16 vaccinated captive-bred condors have been launched all through California, with extra on the best way. The choice to vaccinate all of the captive-bred condors earlier than releasing them into the wild this November was based mostly on the preliminary antibody stage trial outcomes; the total outcomes of the trial are nonetheless pending publication. Vaccinating wild birds stays up within the air, since capturing condors a number of instances to provide them boosters at particular intervals could be a significant logistical hurdle. 

“We’re engaged on vaccinating the birds which can be within the zoos, and attempting to get as lots of the free-flying birds vaccinated as we are able to,” mentioned Gibbs. “However vaccination will not be a silver bullet.”

Whereas the preliminary outcomes of the trial have been hopeful sufficient to make attempting it price a shot, Gibbs stays skeptical of how a lot safety the vaccine will truly present. The vaccine is unlikely to maintain condors from changing into contaminated if they’re uncovered to the avian influenza virus, however—just like the human coronavirus vaccines—would possibly a minimum of lower the possibilities of dying from that an infection. Lengthy-term results of the vaccine are nonetheless unknown, however it has proven no ailing results within the black vultures or condors which have participated up to now.

Into the wild they go. Don’t snigger

In San Simeon, a welcoming committee of a few grownup wild birds poked about down the grassy slope from the open pen, gathering to tear at a stillborn calf carcass that conservation crew members had dragged out to a strategic spot the evening earlier than. The carcass would lure the rookies out of their pen—and appeal to wild adults who may assist the rookies combine into wild condor society. 

After watching condor 1139 feed on the carcass for some time, different rookies adopted him out of the pen to hitch the group meal. Forty-five minutes later, solely two condors remained perched inside, taking their candy time. Whereas these captive-bred condors had been acclimated to the native space and socialized with one another, they’d nonetheless must study the arduous approach the right way to roost and fly lengthy distances.

“It may be moderately comical once they first exit,” mentioned Kara Fadden, one of many Ventana Wildlife Society condor biologists who oversaw the San Simeon launch. “They’ll land on the tiniest twig on a tree, pondering it’s going to assist their weight. It’s a steep studying curve.”

It takes a couple of month for captive-bred condors to construct their flight muscle tissue and study the fundamentals of roosting and discovering their very own meals. The crew will present supplementary carcasses and hold shut observe of the rookies with GPS and radio monitoring. As soon as they’ve gained confidence and energy, this 12 months’s central California rookies will have the ability to fly as many as 100 miles per day, seemingly roaming among the many steep slopes of Large Sur and the rocky outcroppings of Pinnacles Nationwide Park. Different teams of captive-bred, vaccinated condors have been launched from southern and northern California websites earlier this month. Extra are slated to fly off from San Simeon on December 12, and one other batch of rookies shall be launched into Arizona in early 2024. With antibodies from the vaccines of their bloodstream, researchers and conservationists hope they’ll have a greater likelihood of surviving one other avian influenza outbreak.

“If it supplies any stage of safety in any respect, we should always do it,” mentioned Sorenson.