No sex please, we’re condors

FEW ANIMALS have come closer to extinction, and yet survived, than the Californian condor. Thousands died as a result of flying into electrical cables or being poisoned by lead shot from discarded game-animal carcasses. By 1982, there were only 22 left. These relicts were rounded up and brought into a captive-breeding programme that proved an astonishing success. Thanks to the efforts of a team of conservationists co-ordinated by the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance there are now 329 condors flying freely in western North America, and 175 more in the care of various zoos.