A California condor at the Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge in southern California. Jon Myatt / USFWS The California condor once ranged from Mexico in the south to Canada’s British Columbia in the north, but hunting , habitat loss and poisoning drove the species to the brink of extinction. The birds have begun to make a recovery in the southwestern portion of their historic range and now, thanks largely to the efforts of the Yurok Tribe, they will fly over the Pacific Northwest once more. "As soon as I heard the news, I started crying," Yurok Tribe wildlife department director Tiana Williams-Claussen told OPB . "This is something that I’ve been working for literally my entire adult career." On Tuesday of last week, the Yurok Tribe, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service announced a final rule that would create a new condor release facility to reintroduce the birds to the Yurok Ancestral Territory and Redwood National Park. This is in the northern portion of the birds’ range, and marks the first time the birds will fly here in more than 100 years. The California condor played an important role in maintaining Pacific ecosystems and […]
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