Condor chicks breeding season rated a ’10’ success at LA Zoo

Best wishes are in order for the 10 California condor chicks hatched this year at the Los Angeles Zoo. The zoo’s healthy hatchlings in the 2025 condor breeding season will be candidates for release into the wild as part of the California Condor Recovery Program, under the leadership of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The zoo, and also the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, are 1981 founding members of the California Condor Recovery Program. The two organizations also began the California condor captive breeding program.

“Our California condor care team continues to make strides in the recovery efforts of North America’s largest land bird,” said Denise M. Verret, CEO and zoo director, Los Angeles Zoo, wrote in a press release. “This year’s chicks will eventually help increase the genetic diversity of the wild population of condors. This iconic species represents a conservation win for Los Angeles and for California.”

Four of the chicks are being raised under a double brooding method — a breeding try-out method that began in 2017 at the LA Zoo — with two chicks being raised by a pair of surrogate California condors. According to LA Zoo officials, no other zoo or CCRP partner group had tried this breeding technique.

The zoo doesn’t have California condors on exhibit, but visitors may see the endangered birds by attending the “California Condor Talk,” held at 2 p.m. daily at the picnic area next to the Angela Collier World of Birds Show Theater.

In addition, visitors can also see Hope, a non-releasable California condor, at the zoo’s “Angela Collier World of Birds Show,” at noon daily (except on Tuesday and weather permitting).

The Los Angeles Zoo also announced in the press release that Chief Veterinarian and Director of Animal Health and Wellness Dominique Keller, DVM, was one of 19 co-authors on a scientific research paper about the historic California condor highly pathogenic avian influenza vaccine, submitted by the USGS and USFWS to the June 2025 edition of the Emerging Infections Diseases Journal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The zoo announced in October 2023 that it was one of three partner facilities to participate in a HPAI vaccine trial after the avian influenza deaths of 21 free-flying condors in Arizona.

According to the California Condor Recovery Program, the California condor was listed in 1967 by the federal government as an endangered bird. Information about the CCRP: www.fws.gov/program/california-condor-recovery

If you go: 

Los Angeles Zoo: Admission $22; $17 ages 2-12. Location, Griffith Park, Zoo Drive, at the junction of the 5 Freeway (Golden State) and the 134 Freeway (Ventura), Los Angeles. 323-644-4200. www.lazoo.org