If you’re
standing on the Vermilion Cliffs at sunset, looking south towards
the Grand Canyon, there’s a good chance you might see a
wonder of the West, the California condor. As this largest bird in
North America glides over 3,000-foot-high cliffs, its wingspan of
10 feet wide makes its presence unmistakable.
In other
places along the rim of the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs
Wilderness, high above the Colorado River, the sheer size of the
landscape can dwarf the great birds. Visitors lose perspective.
Looking out across the heart of the Colorado Plateau towards
Flagstaff, Ariz., even the largest birds on the continent seem like
black receding dots over ancient canyons.
John Nielsen,
author of a book called Condor, writes, “Those birds would
have seen the Anasazi culture thrive in the Vermilion Cliffs for
roughly 2,000 years, and then watched whatever it was that caused
the Anasazi to vanish without a trace.”
The
Vermilion Cliffs may be a great place to see condors, but it is not
a place for the faint-hearted. The Bureau of Land Management
advises, “Visits to the area require special planning and
awareness of potential hazards such as rugged and unmarked roads,
poisonous reptiles and insects, extreme heat or cold, deep sand and
flash floods.” My kind of place! I agree with the BLM’s
advice to bring “a spare tire, and plenty of water, food and
gasoline.” Shovels are also a necessity, and so is
car-caravanning for support while driving for miles on treacherous
sand. On a five-day car-camping visit, I saw no one.
The
remoteness of the Vermilion Cliffs on the east side of the Arizona
Strip is exactly why federal agencies selected the area as the
perfect location to re-introduce endangered condors. The effort
began in the mid-1990s, after a captive breeding program in
California saved the species from dying out. Now, on the southwest
corner of the rim, holding and feeding pens allow young condors to
acclimate to the wild, while specialists with the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service use hand puppets to feed roadkill to juvenile
birds. This is supposed to fool the birds into thinking humans are
not involved. It seems to work, though condors have been quick to
note the connection between tourists and tasty meals.
While eating lunch on the rim not long ago, three hiking couples
from Durango, Colo., and St. George, Utah, who love the area and
call themselves the “rimhuggers,” watched a young
juvenile with number 43 attached to both wings land 50 feet away,
and then hop closer. At 15 feet the bird ducked its head like it
was bowing, dipped its wings, and, in what passes for
“condorese” — begged for sandwiches. The group
refused, though it is not easy to say no to a condor. The same bird
had been dive-bombing rafters on the Colorado River, landing on
rocks and reportedly seeking the exotic treat of pastrami. He was
later taken back for “re-education” and a healthier
diet of dead rabbits.
Grand Canyon guide Wayne Ranney
believes that California condors evolved with Paleo-Indians
thousands of years ago. He thinks that before the extinction of
megafauna like woolly mammoths, condors cruised in for the banquet
after early man killed these large beasts. These days, the
birds’ affinity for human-killed carrion has not been good
for their health. When the birds feast on animals killed by
hunters, they can also consume bullets contained in the carcass,
and these bullets contain highly poisonous lead.
For
tourists, the scavengers are a wild treat. They spot them on patrol
over the Grand Canyon as they practice aerial acrobatics below
Navajo Bridge, close to Marble Canyon. A few years ago, a pair of
condors even flew as far north as Grand Mesa near Grand Junction,
Colo., startling folks in a visitors’ center.
But
to truly see them in their element dipping, diving, swooping,
gliding, you need to walk the rim of the Vermilion Cliffs. I saw
condor 25 recently. The bird silently drifted over us, white
patches under its wings, feathers at the wing tips splayed out like
spread fingers, a vision from another epoch. In autumn light, as
shadows stretched deep into canyon bottoms and that lovely
orange-gold light climbed cliffs, the vastness of northern Arizona
seemed to stretch forever. And what seemed the shadow of a
low-flying jet plane was nothing more – nor less – than
a Pleistocene bird, back from the brink of extinction.
Andrew Gulliford is a contributor to Writers on the Range,
a service of High Country News in Paonia, Colorado (hcn.org). He is
a professor of Southwest Studies and History at Fort Lewis
College.
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