Endangered ice age vultures invade home to take back what’s theirs

Around 15 California condors — one of the largest flying birds left on Earth — recently conquered a Southern California woman’s porch. The imposing, though very endangered, birds knocked over planters and threw things asunder. 

“Over the weekend ~15 California condors descended on my moms house and absolutely trashed her deck. They still haven’t left,” the Southern California homeowner’s daughter, Seana Quintero, tweeted on May 4. “Sucks but also this is unheard of, there’s only 160 of these birds flying free in the state and a flock of them decided to start a war with my mom.” (Mom, while understandably frustrated, also recognizes this is an amazing event.)

Many Californians live in condor country, though the vulture numbers are so few, they aren’t easily spotted in the wild. Yet California condors, with an over nine-foot wingspan, once dominated the land during the last ice age, with a range extending across most of North America. They feasted on the remains of giant ice age creatures, like mammoths. But when these colossal mammals died out some 10,000 years ago, the vultures’ range shrank down to the Southwest and coastal Pacific regions (still a large swath of land). Eventually, humans decimated the once-dominant species: By 1982, only 23 condors remained.

Today, the condors are simply reemerging in their native lands.

“… [the] home is located in historical condor habitat where natural food sources occur…unfortunately they sometimes perceive houses and decks as suitable perch locations,” the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service tweeted in response to the viral condor posts.

The agency listed the condors as endangered in 1967. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife explains that early Western settlers “often shot, poisoned, captured, and disturbed the condors, collected their eggs, and reduced their food supply of antelope, elk, and other large wild animals.” The condor population, unsurprisingly, plummeted.

The condors, whose wild population has gradually increased to around 160 birds after intensive and still ongoing conservation efforts, aren’t easily shooed away. “They don’t have to leave her property but leave the house alone,” tweeted Quintero. “They keep hanging out on her roof and railings messing with stuff and pooping everywhere.”

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Should anyone else have giant vultures descend upon their home, the Fish and Wildlife Service recommends “water hoses, yelling, clapping, shouting or using other preventative measures such as scarecrow sprinklers.” (A spray with a hose seemed to work, tentatively, in this case.)

Welcome back, you glorious beasts.