These technologies make up five main disciplines: sustainable populations, bioresource banking, wildlife health, habitat conservation, and restoration biology.
Conservation biologists work for the day they can release wildlife into its natural habitat. After conservation technology, biologists turn their attention to monitoring the animals by manual tracking and counting of animal populations. Various techniques have been adapted to hard-tostudy habitats and animal lifestyles, and these methods range from basic
data collection on clipboards to instrument-aided monitoring. Radiotelemetry is one instrument method that has become widely accepted for monitoring rehabilitated or released animals.
Radiotelemetry played a role in the recovery of California condor populations from the brink of extinction. In 1987 biologists captured AC9, the last wild California condor, and brought it to a specialized breeding center
at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park. At the time only 27 condors remained in North America and all lived in captivity. Fortunately, these birds bred well in captivity, and by the early 1990s adults had raised and nurtured several healthy chicks. Human handlers trained the youngsters to avoid power lines and taught the adults to avoid picking up trash items, such as bottlecaps, glass, and shell casings, for feeding to their nestlings. (Condors naturally pick up bits of earth to bring back to their young as a calcium source.) Finally, mentor birds taught the youngsters how to evade
danger and to interact with flocks in the wild.
Rescuers returned AC9 to its natural habitat on May 1, 2002. Biologists followed AC9 along with other new releases, and in 2004 a pair of released birds successfully fledged the first condor chick in the wild since the capture-release program began. Today’s population of California condors totals more than 300 birds, living along California’s coast range, the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and Baja California, Mexico. Many continue to send signals from their transmitters to relieved scientists miles away. At the close of 2007, nature writer John Moir wrote for Birder’s World magazine, “Not long ago, I saw AC9 myself, a magnificent bird soaring over the chaparral-covered mountains of his ancient home, his mighty wings a symbol of hope that the majestic species will survive.” The California condor program exemplified the worth of conservation biology for capture, protection, and safe release into the wild of species on the brink of extinction.
