Summer 2000

Caretaker's Corner
by Ivan Eberle, Caretaker

However, one atypical group of surprise visitors, appearing on both the mornings of 10 and 11 June, had to be driven off. Upon reporting their whereabouts and descriptions, I was told that this was a group of adolescents from Ventura County notorious for hanging out and causing mayhem.

Nine California condors, more than one-sixth of the world’s released population, dropped out of thin air to roost on the rails and steel superstructure of the OOS deck. Within minutes of their arrival on Saturday morning, they began shredding weatherstripping and plastic sheeting with their beaks. Large talons chipped paint when they gripped metal flashings at the edge of the roof. I quickly secured all access to the observing floor and control room, lest the marauders shred cables or power cords. Coincidentally, just a short distance north of the observatory, someone was taking illicit target practice.

Neither the prospect of these endangered and fully protected birds becoming flying targets if I chased them away, nor letting them vandalize the observatory if I didn’t, looked promising.

I phoned a report of the condors and the shooters to the Forest Service ranger station. A short time later, I received a call from Joe Burnett of the Ventana Wilderness Society. He requested the wing tag numbers off each of the birds. After polling the numbers, I babysat the juvie condors and took photos in the interval before the shooting stopped. Meanwhile, Joe called back for the ID numbers, and informed me that this group was from the Sespi sanctuary population north of Los Angeles, and did not belong to the better-behaved Big Sur population. It was recommended that they be discouraged with a garden hose, since they really disdain a shower. But because the water level was already low in the OOS rain-collecting cistern, with a tour scheduled for the next day, I decided on shooing them away instead.

Remember now, these are large ripe-meat eaters with attitude sufficient to drive coyotes away from carcasses. It took a fair amount of arm waving and hollering just to dislodge them. Once evicted, though, their ungainly (some would say ugly) close-up appearance was transformed by the beauty and grace of rock-steady flight. Flapping their five-foot wings a few times, then sailing downslope an easy few miles, they would then spirally ascend the thermal back up the ridge--only to land back on the observatory roof within fifteen minutes. It was a game the vultures had evidently played before, at other venues. Sometime mid-afternoon, they lost interest and soared away.

When they returned mid-Sunday morning, however, it became apparent that the condors were enjoying their little make-the-caretaker-dance-and-yell game at my expense. Contacting Ventana Wilderness Society members again, we hatched plans for a daring daylight aquatic assault, wherein the rogues would be engaged with a large-caliber super-soaker squirt gun. Yes, it was an extreme measure, but this escalation in tactics was called for by the open-house tour scheduled that very afternoon.

Minutes before the arrival of the water cannon, or the first of the visitors for the tour, the condors flew the coop. Thankfully, those bad-boy birds haven’t been seen or heard around these parts since. If they do come back, they might be surprised to find there’s a new sheriff in town.

Editors’ note: Condors and astronomers have shared other mountain tops. Andean Condors, which are not globally endangered and, hence, less at risk by being habituated by human contact, are fed regularly at the edge of a cliff immediately behind the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory dining room by the Chilean kitchen staff.

Last updated 1/11/01 et