A California condor chick whose father died of suspected lead poisoning is being fed by a puppet at a San Diego breeding facility, and the disguise is the thing most likely to get him back into the wild.
Cayic, pronounced “Chai-eech,” was about a month old when U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists decided he would not survive where he was. His name means “strong” in Mutsun, the language of Indigenous people from California’s Central Coast.
His father had stopped returning to the nest, and later died while being treated for suspected lead poisoning. It is the leading cause of death among wild California condors and the biggest obstacle to the species recovering.
Condor parents normally split the work of raising a chick. With the father gone, the mother was returning to the nest less and less as she searched for food, and biologists worked out that Cayic was not getting enough to eat to keep developing.
Pinnacles National Park biologists lifted him out of the nest and moved him to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park’s California condor breeding facility.
That is where the puppets come in, and staff use hand-crafted puppets that look like adult condors and cover the caretaker’s hands and arms, then pass food to the chick with the puppet’s beak, the way a parent bird would in the nest. The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance says the program is designed to prepare young condors for life in the wild.
According to the alliance, Cayic has a healthy appetite and his growth and development are normal.
If the program does its job, he goes back to the wild in fall 2027.
