"You could say this was a $20 million egg, because that's how much has been spent to date to save the California condor," said Don Sterner, 37, lead condor keeper of the park, of the species endangered by poisons and lost habitat. Putting the egg into an incubator hours after it was laid, a crew monitored it for 57 days. A mother's nesting sounds were simulated by tape recordings of bird grunts and chirps and claws rustling in sand. Molloko answered from inside the shell with peeps and wiggling. Fearing that the condor was emerging too slowly and might exhaust itself and die, the team of five scientists performed what could be called an E-section. Dressed in surgical masks and gowns, using gloves and tweezers, they broke the solid eggshell and pulled a thick membrane away from the chick. "The vet tied off one slightly leaking blood vessel, and we put a Band-Aid on it," says Sterner.
The child will never know its parents—UN-1 is the mother and AC-4 the father—because condors lay more eggs when left chickless. Instead, it will receive a hand-delivered diet of chopped newborn mouse, and in four to six months Molloko will be strong enough for a blood test—at which time researchers will determine whether blue or pink booties are in order. And if all goes well, once lots of condors have been zoo-bred, in a few years children of Molloko's will fly the coop and become the first civilized California condors ever released to make it in the wild.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
