Data Story - Return of the Condor

Lesson

![]220:l Introduction Imagine a bird with a 9-foot wingspan, and weighing up to 25 lbs! That is the California condor (Gymnogyps californianus) -- the largest land bird in North America. These majestic creatures once ranged from California to Florida and Western Canada to Northern Mexico. But by the 1960s, condor populations had dropped dramatically, and by 1967 the California condor was listed as "endangered" by the federal government. In 1982, only 23 condors survived world-wide. A team of biologists captured and placed all of the remaining wild condors into a captive breeding program. Thus began an intensive recovery program to save the California condor from extinction. They began reintroducing captive birds back into the wild in 1992.