This video of a giant Andean condor reunited with the person who nursed and cared for it after falling from their nest is making the rounds again after it was initially filmed in 2017. Condors are birds of prey, large and majestic. The California condor is the largest flying bird in North America, inhabiting the mountains of Baja California, southern and central California, Arizona, and Utah. Along with the Andean condor, these birds are known as New World vultures.
Time Now reports, "In 2017, a man named Edgardo from Argentina rescued a condor after it fell from its nest as a baby. As the huge bird didn't forget his rescuer after regaining health, it flew a long distance to meet Edgardo."
As Nadine Rick wrote three years ago at One Green Planet, "It is not unusual for wild animals to form a special bond with their rescuers, and it has been seen time and time again, even after years have passed, that they still remember and even visit their guardian angels. This goes to show the human and animal bond is strong and should never be taken for granted."
As reported in National Geographic, "Condors were sacred birds to the Native Americans who lived in the open spaces of the U.S. West. The captive breeding of this critically endangered species is one of the most well-known efforts to revive an animal on the verge of extinction."
Led by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, after the numbers of condors dropped to staggeringly low levels in the late 1960s, "the California condor was listed as endangered by the federal government under the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966, the predecessor to the Endangered Species Act, and in 1979 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service established the California Condor Recovery Program. The 1996 Recovery plan established goals (criteria) for down listing the species from Endangered to Threatened. These include establishing two wild, geographically distinct self-sustaining populations, each with 150 birds and at least 15 breeding pairs. In addition, the plan includes maintaining a third population of condors in captivity."
Check out this research paper on the behavior of the Andean condor.
Click here for details about California condor behavior, habitat, diet, and other information from The Cornell Lab for Ornithology.
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