California condors will receive a vaccine for a deadly strain of avian influenza that threatens to wipe out the already critically endangered vulture species, federal officials said Tuesday.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service granted emergency approval for use of the vaccine after more than a dozen condors recently died from the bird flu, known as H5N1.
There are fewer than 350 California condors in the wild, in flocks that span from the Pacific Northwest to Baja California, Mexico.
DEADLY BIRD FLU THREATENS CALIFORNIA CONDORS ALREADY ON THE BRINK OF EXTINCTION
Over the past year and a half, millions of birds across the U.S. have died from avian flu, including more than 430 bald eagles and some 58 million turkeys and commercial chickens that were euthanized to prevent the spread of the disease.
California’s population of iconic condors, with their 10-foot wingspans, was nearly wiped out by hunting during the California Gold Rush, as well as by poisoning from toxic pesticide DDT and ingesting lead ammunition.
In the 1980s, all 22 California condors left in the wild were put into captive breeding programs to save the species. Zoo-bred birds were first released into the wild in 1992 and in the years since have been reintroduced into wild habitats.