For Immediate Release, October 11, 2018

Contact: Ileene Anderson, (323) 490-0223, ianderson@biologicaldiversity.org

After Second Endangered California Condor Shot, $15,000 Reward Offered

LOS ANGELES— The Center for Biological Diversity today tripled the reward to $15,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the May 2018 shooting and subsequent death of a California condor in Tulare County. Condors are protected under California law and the federal Endangered Species Act.   

The killing was belatedly announced in September by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Another condor was shot in Kern County in July of 2018.

“I’m shocked that another California condor has been tragically shot and killed,” said Ileene Anderson, a senior scientist with the Center. “Why it took four months for the Fish and Wildlife Service to announce this illegal killing is unfathomable. We hope this additional reward pushes anyone with knowledge to come forward so this ugly crime can be fully prosecuted.”

The condor was found dead on private property south of Hot Springs Road and east of Old Stage Coach Road in Tulare County, according to news reports. The bird’s cause of death was trauma from a gunshot wound, as determined by a necropsy performed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Wildlife Forensics Laboratory.

While the species is recovering, only a few hundred California condors exist in the wild.

The Fish and Wildlife Service initially offered a $5,000 reward for information on the perpetrators of this crime.

Anyone with details of the incident should call the Service’s Office of Law Enforcement in Sacramento at (916) 569-8476. Callers can remain anonymous.