Tags
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by
inaspin
Is there a convention which puts tags on left or right wing according to gender?
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by
myraf
scientist
No, there is no convention (although that would have been fun). Depending on how the birds wear the tags, etc. the tags sometimes get changed to a different wing.
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by
inaspin
Also noticed that some birds are wearing radio tags (sometimes getting in the way of the numbers). And how do you catch them to tag 'em?
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by
myraf
scientist
Great question! Actually pretty much all of the free-flying condors in California are fitted with radio tags and some are also fitted with GPS transmitters. The condors are monitored by biologists affiliated with their release sites (from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Pinnacles National Park, and Ventana Wildlife Society) on a near daily basis to make sure they are doing okay. One reason for the feeding stations where these cameras are set up is to habituate the condors to come back so they can be re-captured ~2/year to check their transmitters and do a health exam. When the release sites do a trap-up, the condors are baited into a very large flight pen so they can be handled for management purposes. You can sometimes see parts of one of these flight pens in some of the photos.
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by
inaspin
Thanks for the comprehensive answer. I wondered about the purpose of the pens. Love the "guess my weight" images where a large adult seems to like perching on the scale.
Posted