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It was past 4:30 by the time they landed. Nightfall was less than four hours away, and the crew had orders not to fly after dark. They were three miles from the pen. The fire was getting closer. As Burnett hit the ground, all he could think was, We've got to keep moving.
As Burnett's team hustled down the dirt road, ash fell like snow around them. The only sound was the pounding of their boots—even the insects were quiet. They reached the compound just after five and managed to start up an old ATV to use as a transport for the birds. Tyner grabbed a chain saw from the toolshed and went to cut up a tree that had fallen across the road, while the other two men hauled the crates to the holding pen.
The pen was the size of a high school gym, furnished with stumps, snags, and branches for perching. They first went for Hoi, the 17-year-old mentor bird. He gave in easily, but his protégés were a challenge. Even at 18 months, condors have enormous wings, and their beaks and nails are razor-sharp. It took a half hour to capture the first chick and get the two kennels onto the ATV. Burnett took off with them.
He was waiting at the landing pad when the helicopter returned from a refueling run. Greene warned that they had time for only two trips to Monterey. Burnett sped back to the pen, returning 45 minutes later with two more chicks, and then, around 7:30, with two more. Michaelson managed to cram five kennels into the chopper.
Dusk was falling, and the fire was now a mile and a half away. "Be here at 8:30 with the rest of the birds," Greene called to Burnett over the engine's noise. "And be prepared: If we can't land, you'll have to leave them and we'll pick you up somewhere below the ridge." The chopper lifted off. Burnett put the kennel holding the sixth chick in a hollow near the helipad and hightailed it back to the compound.
Tyner and Bonifas had just captured the seventh condor when Burnett reached the pen. The eighth, the three-foot-tall No. 438, was leading them on a chase, launching herself from perch to perch to elude their grasp. "Come on, bird," the men coaxed as they darted after the chick. Five minutes remained before they were due back. Burnett finally scrambled up a ladder, grabbed 438 by her feet, and tossed her, against official protocol, to Tyner and Bonifas. She was netted and wrestled into the kennel. Burnett loaded up the ATV and leaped behind the wheel. But it wouldn't start.
Tyner, an ATV pro, took the driver's seat. While the others pushed the quad downhill toward the road, he shifted into second gear and the engine caught. "Don't stop till you get there!" Burnett yelled to Tyner as he took off on foot with Bonifas. They were halfway to the landing site and coughing from the smoke when Tyner returned for them. He'd seen no sign of the chopper. "We may have to carry those last three kennels down on our backs," Burnett said wearily. He and Bonifas hung on to the quad as Tyner drove them back to the helipad.
As they rounded the last bend, they heard the distant chop of rotors and saw lights in the murky dark. The helicopter was crawling up the ridge, searching for the pad. "Keep going," Burnett directed by radio. "One more peak and you're there."
It finally landed, and Michaelson hauled the last three kennels on board. "Let's go, let's go! Fire's coming!" he shouted. The engine howled as the chopper hurtled down the side of the ridge. The air was opaque. Would they find their way out? Burnett thought of his wife and child and wondered if he'd ever see them again. Then the helicopter burst through the acrid smoke and into a clear night. Looking back, the men saw ribbons of flame glowing on the hillsides. They—and the condors—were safe.
When the team arrived at the Monterey airport, a small but joyous crowd rushed onto the tarmac. Sorenson, Dmytryk, and Titus helped a couple of government biologists load the birds into a van, which took them 70 miles inland to a pen at Pinnacles National Monument.
The youngsters continued their tutelage with Hoi until they were ready for the wild. Three were released last fall at the Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge in Southern California; the other four, in November and December, into the outback of Pinnacles. In March, Burnett watched one of the birds—a female known as No. 431—soar over the mountains and into Big Sur, her black and white wings huge against the sky. "Seeing them make it as condors—that's the moment you live for," he says, smiling. "That's when you know what you've done has made a difference."
The Basin Complex fire burned 163,000 acres and consumed nearly 60 structures, including the Big Sur holding pen. Two free-flying condors were lost. Soon afterward, when Burnett climbed a charred redwood to investigate why a pair of condors kept returning to it, he made an astonishing discovery: In a hollow at the top of the 200-foot tree, a six-month-old condor chick had somehow survived the blaze. It was, says Burnett, "like the phoenix sitting there in a bed of ashes."
Condor Lore
- The California condor has the largest wingspan of any land bird in North America. Its closest relative is the slightly larger Andean condor of South America.
- Despite the name, California condors were found in pioneer days as far east as Colorado. Today, about 175 birds live free, mostly in the mountains of California and northern Mexico, Arizona's Grand Canyon, and Utah's Zion National Park.
- Captive-born chicks spend their first year or so in zoos, where they're sometimes fed by hand puppets disguised as condors. To prepare for their release into the wild, they live for at least six months in remote outdoor pens, where they're mentored by adult birds.
- Condor pairs reproduce only once every two years, giving birth to a single chick. Individuals can live past 50 years.
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