page_title: California condor
section_title: Condor Watch
hierarchical_section_title: California condor / Conservation / Condor Watch
caption_attribution_description: English: Official Zooniverse avatar for Condor Watch
context_page_description: The California condor is a New World vulture, and the largest North American land bird. It became extinct in the wild in 1987, but has since been reintroduced to northern Arizona and southern Utah, the coastal mountains of central and southern California, and northern Baja California. Although four other fossil members are known, it is the only surviving member of the genus Gymnogyps. The species is listed by the IUCN as critically endangered.
  The plumage is black with patches of white on the underside of the wings; the head is largely bald, with skin color ranging from gray on young birds to yellow and bright orange on breeding adults. Its 3.0 m wingspan is the widest of any North American bird, and its weight of up to 12 kg nearly equals that of the trumpeter swan, the heaviest among native North American bird species. The condor is a scavenger and eats large amounts of carrion. It is one of the world's longest-living birds, with a lifespan of up to 60 years.
  Condor numbers dramatically declined in the 20th century due to poaching, lead poisoning, and habitat destruction.
context_section_description: Condor Watch has now finished: "Because Zooniverse has discontinued the platform hosting Condor Watch, the project has gone offline... Look for Condor Watch 2.0 to relaunch on Zooniverse's new platform!" 
  A crowdsourcing project called Condor Watch (CW) was started on April 14, 2014, hosted by the web portal Zooniverse. Volunteers were asked to examine motion-capture images of California condors associated with release sites managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service and Ventana Wildlife Society. The tasks on the website included identifying tagged condors and marking the distance to feeding sources such as animal carcasses. Biologists can then use this data to deduce which birds are at risk of lead poisoning.
  Condor Watch enabled volunteers, or citizen scientists, to participate in active research. The project had up 175,000 images to view and assess far more than the team could hope to view on their own. Lead scientist Myra Finkelstein believes volunteering is fun because it allows enthusiasts to track the "biographies" of individual condors. Citizen science has long been used in ornithology, for instance in the Audubon Society's Christmas Bird Count, which began in 1900 and the breeding bird survey which began in 1966. McCaffrey (2005) believes this approach not only directly benefits ongoing projects, but will also help train aspiring ornithologists.
  Condors Seen in Sequoia After Nearly 50 Years
  The California Condor was seen for the first time in nearly 50 years in Sequoia National Park in late May 2020.
caption: Zooniverse icon for Condor Watch
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