The Best Camp Ever {by D}

When we picked D up from his day at Ventana Wildlife Society's Condor Camp last week, he was ecstatic and gushed, "Mommy, that was the best camp eveeeeeeeeeeeeeer!" Awesome. So, naturally, I had him write about it.


June 12, 2014 -
Today I went to the best camp ever, Condor Camp!

First we went to Laguna Grande Park to meet everyone and get in the van. But, while we were waiting, we played aquarium tag, which is pretty much Snakes and Minnows except you have to think of an animal and one of its adaptations. When the person who is It calls on your adaptation, you run to the other side.

After the game we introduced ourselves and told what our favorite animal was. Mine is a wombat!

Then we got into the van and drove all the way to Big Sur. We passed Bixby Bridge and went all the way to the Ventana Wildlife Society's Visitor Center and learned about animals. Here are a few facts I learned during that presentation...

Mountain lions lick their babies' butts to keep them clean. California condors live in the Grand Canyon, too. They can get killed by electrical poles. Baby condors eat plastic and get poisoned by the DDT, but sometimes they have surgery to remove the poisoned plastic from their stomachs. I also learned that condors can change the color of their skin, depending on how they are feeling. Finally, I learned that the California condor population was down to 22 in 1970.

Then we climbed into the vans and drove to Seal Cove because seal is one of condors favorite foods. So, we set off. When we reached Seal Cove, we didn't find any seals or any condors. We did find a bunch of ants and a turkey vulture was flying overhead in the sky.

Then we drove to private property in Pfeiffer where the condors usually hang out and we heard beep! Beep! BEEP! from the  tracking device. It was Condor #204. He flew through the trees and down the cove. We got out the telescope to see if there were any more condors. We did this for about ten minutes. Finally we packed up, ate lunch, and went swimming.

Best. Camp. Ever.

Condor Camp {by R}

My brother and I went to Condor Camp last week with Ventana Wildlife Society.

We started off the day playing a game of adaptations. I was a cone shell snail. Then we introduced ourselves and shared what we wanted to get out of condor camp in a group circle. I wanted to learn more about thermal gliding and I also wanted to see a condor. 

Then my brother and I climbed into the 'Great White Shark' which was actually a large van that could hold 15 people. The other van was called the 'Lone Gray Wolf.' The adults drove us all to Big Sur.

We stopped at a visitor center on condors. And, even though it was closed, we got to look around it. Then we got a quick presentation on condors. 

I learned that lead poisoning is the biggest threat to California condors today.When a hunter shoots an animal with a lead bullet, lead scatters all around the flesh. If the kill is not found by the hunter, a condor could eat it and it only takes a miniscule amount of lead to kill a condor. And I definitely did not know that the condors get electrocuted on power lines because they are so big that they easily touch two wires, completing a circuit. 

We got to see how the condor tracker operates. Almost all the condors are tagged with radio transmitters. If you see a condor without a radio transmitter, it means that they were likely raised in the wild.

As you can tell, I learned a lot from Condor Camp!