Save the Ugly 10-Foot-Winged Vultures!

Never has so much energy been put toward saving an uglier, albeit impressive, bird than the California Condor. The 10-foot-winged vulture, which inhabits the mountains from Baja, Mexico, up to Big Sur and across into northern Arizona, is like an avian Uncle Fester. Its globular pink-orange head protrudes from its body, encircled by an effeminate collar of fluff. In 1987, after decades of attrition due to hunting, power-line collisions, and lead poisoning contracted from carcasses, only 27 condors were left. Then, under the most expensive U.S. conservation program to date, California zoos captured the birds for an innovative practice called captive breeding, and, by the early '90s, released some back into the wild. Though they are still critically endangered, about 400 condors now exist, and their numbers are increasing.