Breeding condors in captivity for release into the wild

Recognizing the decline of the South American Condor in some parts of its range and the highly endangered status of the California condor, the New York Zoological Society developed a captive‐breeding program for South American condors. This program was designed to produce techniques applicable to hand‐rearing of either species of condor. Once condors were successfully reared in captivity, it became imperative to develop techniques to ensure that captive‐reared condor chicks could be released into the wild, could survive there, and could interact naturally with other wild condors. Captive‐bred hand‐reared condor chicks were taken to Northwestern Peru and successfully released into the wild.