Let me be clear about the fact that I was never in favor of extinction
for the California Condor, and I am not in favor of that now. My
committee and I favored a middle ground (as I have written before,
apparently not to the attention of Bishop Baccus) that would have
proceeded at a less hectic pace with the production of hatchery condors,
and left some of the adults and juvenals in the wild (yes, "juvenal" is
spelled correctly; this spelling is a variant that survived Joseph
Grinnell's editorial flirting with phonetic spelling -an experiment that
infested even some early issues of *The Condor*, a professional
journal). And I am perfectly willing to admit that condors in captivity
are better than no condors at all, but I do not think those were
exclusive alternatives. It may well be that some releases will be
"successful" in future, and in fact I hear that the latest batch of 4
released in southern California are doing "better". But in all
likelihood we could have had a better integrated population had the
technotwits not taken over; their passion to catch, patagial tag, radio,
and eventually cage all the wild birds was pathological, in my view. And
I repeat: I don't question their motives relative to *their* orientation
to the condor. What was left out of that respect was any strong regard
for wildness, certainly a major and necessary value for any species we
seek to "recover", and especially important -again, in my view- with one
of the wildest and least accessible bird species in North America.
Steve Herman

On Tue, 14 Nov 1995, Ronald Orenstein wrote:

> >
> >However, in practical terms, hasn't it turned out indeed to be
> >"condoricide?" How successful has this plan been to increase the wild
> >population of Condors?
> >
> >_____________________________________________________________________________
> >Scott Ray
>
> May I suggest that, whatever you think of the program, the jury is still out
> on this one? Certainly the program has been more successful than some of
> its detractors predicted. You might want to look at an anthology of
> anti-program pieces published at the time, called "The Condor Question:
> Captive or Forever Free?" I don't know what the "right" decision would have
> been - but I certainly can't side with those who wanted the condor to remain
> in the wild so it could "die with dignity".
> --
> Ronald I. Orenstein Phone: (905) 820-7886 (home)
> International Wildlife Coalition Fax/Modem: (905) 569-0116 (home)
> Home: 1825 Shady Creek Court Messages: (416) 368-4661
> Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L5L 3W2 Internet: ornstn at inforamp.net
> Office: 130 Adelaide Street W., Suite 1940
> Toronto, Ontario Canada M5H 3P5
>
>