B7, the youngest member of the North Coast’s fledgling California condor flock, also known by the Yurok name Pey-noh-pey-o-wok’ (I am friend or kind or good natured), has died from lead poisoning after just three months in the wild.
According to the Northern California Condor Restoration Program — a Yurok Tribe-led effort to return the endangered bird they know as prey-go-neesh to the northern reaches of the species’ former territory in partnership with Redwood National and State Parks — the 18-month-old male was found dead in a remote area of the park in January.
Known as nature’s clean-up crew, condors play an important role in the ecosystem as apex scavengers that use their powerful beaks to pierce the tough skins of dead animals ranging from deer and elk to sea lions, and even the occasional whale, clearing large carcasses from the environment and helping prevent the spread of disease.
Lead poisoning is the largest threat to condor survival in the natural environment, with about half of condor deaths in the wild attributed to birds eating lead fragments in carrion.
“The loss of Pey-noh-pey-o-wok’ was a huge blow to us. Death is part of work with wild animals, but his was hard as our first loss” said NCCRP Program Manager and Yurok Tribe Senior Biologist Chris West in the announcement. “Thankfully, we have 17 other amazing birds in our flock carrying our hopes, dreams, and prayers.”
In the years before the first condors in more than a century arrived back on Yurok ancestral lands through the program, the tribe worked extensively to educate local hunters about non-lead ammunition options. And, in 2019, California banned the use of lead ammunition for hunting.
“A natural death would have been less painful for us, the humans watching as he started to flourish in the wild. Pey-noh-pey-o-wok’ was known for his friendliness, preening and huddling together with other condors, sharing food easily,” Yurok Tribe Wildlife Department Director Tiana Williams-Claussen said. “He had only been flying free for a few months. That he was brought down by something human-caused and preventable is devastating,”
Today’s announcement says the NCCRP delayed releasing the news until an official cause of death was determined and notes “a tiny lead bullet fragment is enough to kill not only a condor but also vultures and eagles, should they scavenge on remains of an animal killed with lead ammunition.”
“Pey-noh-pey-o-wok’ was found to have a lead air gun pellet in his ventriculus, or gizzard, and high to very high concentrations of lead in his liver and bone,” the announcement says. “The source of the pellet is unknown.”
In the nearly three years since the first condors in the North Coast flock were released, there have been several close calls, most recently in November when A9 underwent weeks of intensive medical treatment due to a potentially lethal case of lead poisoning while eight other birds showed elevated lead levels.
In October of 2023, A6 also underwent lead poisoning treatment and five other condors were found to have elevated levels of the toxin during routine health assessments done a few days after they fed on the remains of an elk killed by a poacher in the Bald Hills area of Redwood National and State Parks, which is believed to be the source.
A year before that, two tainted elk were found within the North Coast condors’ range — with just one of the poached animals containing enough lead bullet fragments to kill several condors, according to the Yurok Tribe.
At the time, West described that incident as being “as close as you can get to a worst-case scenario.”
Before being reintroduced to the region in May of 2022, the last condor sighting on the North Coast was in 1892 after decades of decimation by settlers, who shot and poisoned the birds considered sacred in Yurok tradition.
A new cohort of the condors is expected to be released later this year.
Find more information about NCCRP here.
This article appears in There’s a Fish Market Splashing into Eureka.
