Condor Recovery Program

Go behind the scenes with the iconic California condor at Hopper Mountain NWR.

The California Condor Recovery Program was established in 1980 to help recover and conserve condors from the brink of extinction. In 1987 condors were removed from the wild into captive facilities for five years before reintroduction started in 1992. Bitter Creek and Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuges were established to preserve critical habitat and provide ideal locations for condor conservation efforts like monitoring, releasing, and trapping. These lands are closed to the public due to the sensitive nature of California condors, and the valuable work done there to protect this species.

For the first time ever, you can explore these remote, rugged, and wild lands at your leisure through the TimeLooper Xplore app. Join biologists as they monitor for birds near Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge with radio telemetry. View a shooting demonstration to better understand how the use of non-lead ammunition can help save condors and other scavengers at Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge. Get up close to a condor nest, and observe biologists trap, draw blood, and release wild condors in Southern California. You will launch your explorations from a virtual research station, modeled after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s operating station for California condor recovery in Ventura, California.

You can dive deeper into condor conservation by following along with our CondorExplorers Research Journal. Designed for students (ages 11-16) in and around the condor’s range in Southern California. The Research Journal guides you through the app, encouraging you to focus on specific data to make predictions and defend your scientific claims. Submitting the complete journal will reward you with four digital mission badges and a Lifelong Condor Conservationist’s e-badge. Check out www.condorkids.net/condorexplorers to download the journal, then use www.virtualfieldtrip.com to set up a live Q&A with a condor conservationist.