Outline of Project
Versión en Español

 

The Andean Condor, the biggest flying bird of the world, has been worshipped during thousand years by the Southamerican native communities, considered as the very Spirit of the Andean, a sacred link between men and God.

Condor

Although it was an abundant species in the past time, this emblematic animal, symbolic link with our cultural past time, has nowadays and unfortunately turned into a conservation challenge.

The Andean Condor Conservation Project (ACCP) was created in August 1991, in Pampa de Achala, Córdoba, Argentina. This project is organized by the Buenos Aires ZOO, the Temaikén

 

Foundation and the Argentina Bioandina Foundation and has the support of renowened national and international institutions.

Its main objective is to take care of the conservation of these fabulous birds and their majestic ecosystem, along the whole mountain range, to ensure the survival of what is considered the Living Spirit of the Andean.


  
 
  Distribution and present problematic
  


Condor
Extinction antecedents of Californian Condor, in Northamerica, which occupies same ecologic grade and suffers the same selection pressures than the andean, exert weight on the existence of the Andean Condor. United States has invested, since 1987, more than 20 million dollars, trying to conserve the latest wild specimens and even so, their destiny is still uncertain. Although Argentina has the best condor´s populations of Southamerica, it is evident that conservation measures should be taken so as to avoid being at the same extreme point than the Californian Condor was.

 

CondorThe Andean Condor has, in Southamerica, started to show symptoms of extinction, It has been declared extinct species in Venezuela, in 1965, in Colombia and Ecuador only survive less than 100 wild specimens, Perú and Bolivia have suffered a reduction in their wild populations and although Argentina and Chile have the better wild populations, some local extinctions have been registered, such as at the Atlantic coast in the Patagonia Argentina, where, in the middle of 1800 naturalists like Charles Darwin or Perito Moreno had found abundant populations of this species in places where they do not longer exist nowadays.

Condor
The causes that bring about this retraction of the species are exclusively linked to human activities. The mistaken belief that the Condor kills cattle to feed on them, when in fact he is a scavenger, has turned him to be considered a plague and be unjustified shot. Besides, the deaths due to toxic baits consumption; reduction of available food in several zones; the expansion of cities; the alteration of habitat and mainly the situation of lack of information on this species, all reasons that placed Andean Condor in its present situation.

Thanks to thousand hours of observation, we got to know that the Andean Condor is a Condorscavenger animal, that is to say, he feeds on dead animals. In this way, the corpses´ accumulation is avoided, thus preventing the formation of infectious focuses and also performing an invaluable role, as natural collector in the maintenance of equilibrium of andean ecosystem. Moreover, thanks to its powerful beak, plays a fundamental role in the nutricional chain, since he is in charge of opening the leather of big dead animals, allowng in this way, that other lesser scavengers, may have access to food.