Usher and Lil Jon were bouncing out of car stereo systems, “13 Going On 30″ was a must-watch romcom, and if you asked someone, “Have you seen ‘The Office’?” you would have been talking about the British version. It was May 9, 2004, and, at the Oregon Zoo’s condor conservation center in Clackamas County, a condor emerged from his egg.
Kun-Wac-Shun, also known as No. 340, was the first of a long line of condors hatched at the Jonsson Center for Wildlife Conservation. His name means “Thunder and lightning” and the name was given to him by Chief Nelson Wallulutum of the Wasco tribe.
Since the program began in 2003, almost 120 chicks have hatched at the conservation center and released at different sites in California and Arizona. Kun-Wac-Shun was released at Pinnacles National Park in 2005 and since then, he’s become a lynchpin in the success of the species in the wild.
“In the 1980s, fewer than 30 of these birds remained on the planet, “ said Travis Koons, who oversees the zoo’s condor program, in a press release from the Oregon Zoo. “No. 340 has played a big role in the condor’s comeback.”
When Lewis and Clark arrived in Oregon in 1805, condors ranged from Mexico to Canada along the West Coast of what is now the United States. But the westward incursion of settlers signaled a decline for the massive vultures.
In a video from 2014, then-deputy conservation manager at the zoo David Shepherdson noted that condors could live 60 to 70 years and breed slowly, producing only one chick every two years.
“They’re uniquely susceptible to anything in the environment that might kill adults,” Shepherdson said.
Pest poisons, lead from bullets, hunting and power lines all winnowed down the population until the California condor was listed as part of the Endangered Species Act in 1973.
By 1982, only 22 condors flew free in the world and in 1987, the final few remaining condors were captured to be cared for by humans, in a bid to save the species.
Some 10 years later, condor chicks bred in captivity from four programs on the West Coast were finally ready to be released into the wild.
Now, with the help of Kun-Wac-Shun, there are more than 500 condors in the world, most of which are wild.
For nearly 20 years, Kun-Wac-Shun has flown high in California’s skies. He has sired five chicks and, alongside his partner is considered “the most dominant condor pair in the park,” according to the Oregon Zoo.
Condors are monogamous, and in 2016, Kun-Wac-Shun and his partner Tiny, or No. 236, hatched the first condor to “fledge from its nest at the Pinnacles in more than a century,” the zoo said. That female chick was called No. 828.
But living in the wild is hard. The reasons condors were on the brink of extinction in the ‘80s haven’t disappeared. Habitat loss, hunting and pollution still impact the vultures.
Above all else, lead from hunter’s bullets contaminating the carrion condors eat and poisoning the birds remains an existential threat.
In 2014, Kun-Wac-Shun’s first partner, No. 444, Ventana who was the first wild-hatched condor in Big Sur, died of lead poisoning, and in 2022, his groundbreaking daughter, No. 828, was also killed by the toxin.
Of Kun-Wac-Shun’s five offspring, only three are alive today. And Kun-Wac-Shun himself has been treated for elevated lead levels with chelation therapy, “an intravenous solution that soaks up lead” in blood at least 15 times, according to the Oregon Zoo.
Condors aren’t the only animals who are being killed by lead poisoning after eating carcasses filled with lead bullet fragments. Eagles and other scavengers are also at risk of ingesting those small pieces, which can lead to “paralysis of the digestive tract and a slow death by starvation,” the zoo said.
For condors in the wild, however, lead poisoning is the number one cause of death.
Lead ammunition has been illegal in California since 2019. The zoo has been working to educate hunters about non-lead ammunition since 2015, holding workshops, educational displays and shooting demonstrations, among other things, in an effort to encourage hunters to keep California’s scavenging birds alive.
While condors in the wild can live into their 60s, “the odds of a condor making it to 60 are greatly reduced by the presence of lead in the environment,” said Hova Najarian, a spokesperson for the zoo.
For the first condor hatched in the Oregon program to have lived 20 years and become a dominate wild bird is an achievement alone, but, said Najarian, “Hopefully, he has many years ahead of him!”
– Lizzy Acker covers life and culture and writes the advice column Why Tho? Reach her at 503-221-8052, lacker@oregonian.com or @lizzzyacker
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