How long is a condor

This means that several of them will fly, perch, or rest together. They also eat in large groups. When a condor feeds on a carcass, it may be joined by several soaring condors that, noticing the frenzy below, land and join the feast. Other scavengers, such as ravens, also hang around, hoping to get a bite. Apart from looking for food and eating, condors have other ways in which they remain safe and healthy. They often perch with their wings outspread, sunning themselves.

Condors, like many birds and even humans, enjoy the feel of the warm sun on their backs. Condors spread their wings to allow the most sunlight to reach as many of their feathers as possible. They sun to stay warm and to keep their feathers healthy. When the weather becomes too hot, however, condors have a very different tactic for staying cool. When we get hot, we sweat.

As the sweat evaporates, it helps keep us cool. Instead, they poop on their own legs! Though this might sound gross or strange to us, this is actually a very effective way for them to stay comfortable when temperatures get too high.

When the poop begins to evaporate from their legs, it has a cooling effect, just like our sweat does for us. In the early s, condor populations continued to decline due to shooting, lead poisoning and other factors. By , only 22 California Condors remained. Conservationists realized that drastic measures were needed to help save the species.

An intensive recovery program began. Wild chicks were removed from nests to be raised in zoos, and adult condors were trapped and brought to special facilities where they would be safe and where they could continue to produce young. At one point, every single living condor was in captivity.

The first successful captive breeding of California Condors occurred in and releases into the wild began in California in Though releases and captive breeding have helped this species, the main threat to their survival is still lead poisoning.

When an animal, such as a deer, is shot with a lead bullet, the bullet breaks up into tiny pieces that stay inside the animal. When condors feed on the remains of these animals, they unknowingly swallow pieces of these bullets along with their meal.

The lead poisons the condors, which makes them very sick. Without treatment, many of them die. Each year condors in the Arizona flock are tested and, if necessary, treated for lead poisoning, then released back into the wild. A good way to help condors is to use bullets made of other materials, such as copper.

Because condors rely on dead animals for food, human hunters who use non-lead bullets can actually help condors survive by providing gut piles and other animal remains for condors to feed on. California Condors are also threatened by garbage. Because they are curious birds, they are interested in new things. Small pieces of trash, called microtrash, such as pieces of broken glass, bottle caps, screws, and wire, can be attractive to a condor and might be mistaken for food.

Some adults even bring these items back to their nests, where the chicks may accidentally swallow them. Diet: Carnivore. Size: Body, 3. Weight: 18 to 31 pounds. Size relative to a 6-ft man:. Critically endangered. Least Concern Extinct. Current Population Trend: Increasing. This photo was submitted to Your Shot, our photo community on Instagram.

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Science Why it's so hard to treat pain in infants. However, some have been known to live up to 75 in captivity. This age is only surpassed by its New World cousin, the California Condor, which has a life expectancy of 60 years in the wild.

Andean Condor in a zoo. This magnificent bird was placed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in , and is in danger of becoming completely extinct in the near future. The primary factor in its demise is over hunting by humans that mistakenly believe Condors threaten their livestock. Other factors include loss of habitat, and pesticide poisoning passing up the food chain.

Take a trip to South America and see the Andean Condor fly around the Andean peaks before it is too late. View trip. Baby Condor.