The Ventura Audubon Society is pleased to welcome Debbie Parisi as the featured speaker for our September program. She will present a brief history of the California Condor with the cause of its demise, and the establishment of the California Condor Recovery Program with its goal to establish captive breeding and the reintroduction of this critically endangered species back into the wild.   

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The California condor was listed as an endangered species in 1967. In 1987 California Condors were on the verge of extinction with only 27 alive, as the last free flying condor, AC9, was taken from the wild. In 1992, the USFWS began reintroducing captive-bred condors to the wild to reestablish the population. Today, there are over 560 birds with over half of them flying free in the wild in various populations including California, Arizona, and Baja Mexico. The California Condor is a resident of the local area and can be found in the mountains behind Ojai, Santa Paula, Fillmore, Piru, and Santa Barbara. 

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The Recovery Program is currently focusing its efforts on the captive breeding and reintroduction of California condors to the wild in the hopes of establishing a self-sustaining population of two geographically separate populations, one in California and the other in Arizona, each with 150 birds and at least 15 breeding pairs.