Recent newspaper releases have brought up the “recovery” of the California condor to the wild. The question I have to ponder: When does an animal survive in the wild? Is a creature believed to be “wild” that required man’s help to survive?
How much of the sustenance of the condor is wild sources or given by the hand of man? What percentage of human support would be required to keep an animal wild and free to survive on its own merits in the wild?
I think the answer is without human sources of food, the condor would not survive in the world of today. If we are giving the bodies of dead domestic animals (horse, cattle, sheep, and pig) does an animal deserve the title of “wild”? What would PETA say about the slaughter of one animal for another?
At one time, condors survived on the carrion of large mammals and large ocean creatures during the age of mammals in California more than 10,000 years ago. In the modern age of man, the vast herds of cattle once roamed the halls of Central and Southern California. Now, carrion is the smaller animals (road kill) mostly dined on by the turkey vulture that has adapted to our urban world.
The question then remains: Does the condor deserve the title of restored to the wild, or an animal only entitled to live by the hand of man?
This article appears in Oct 19-26, 2017.