O.C. Q&A: Wildlife Edition

A magic lantern slide image of a California condor, 1900 (Courtesy San Jose Public Library)

Q: Are there any California Condors in Orange County?

A: There have been no confirmed sightings of California condors in Orange County in about a century. But this largest of all North American birds - with a 10-foot wingspan - was once common here. In the 1980s the last 22 condors were captured for a breeding program. More than 200 are in the wild again, but they're still endangered. Once, the condors were decimated by poisoning by ranchers and hunting. Today, habitat destruction, lead poisoning (from eating bullet-riddled animal carcasses), power lines, and "green" wind turbines are their downfalls.  Still, they're rebounding, so watch the skies for enormous ugly birds.

Q: What are the strangest animals native to Orange County?

A: Not counting the two-legged kind? Well, historian Jim Sleeper passed along a story about blind fish that lived in the underground lakes and peat springs deep below what’s now Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, and the southern end of Santa Ana. (Not to be confused with the infamous “blind mullet” of Newport Harbor.) These fish were occasionally brought up from deep wells. No more than two inches long, the species had lived in total darkness for so long that it gradually de-evolved to having no eyes.

Frankly, the Fountain Valley Blind Fish makes a more memorable team name for Fountain Valley High School than the rather conventional Barons.   

Q: If possums aren't native to California, why are they in my yard?

A: The possum, a native of the Southeast, was first introduced into California near L.A., around 1890. Homesick Southerners continued to bring more possums into the state up through the 1930s, both as food and as a source of cheap fur. Often, possums escaped, and soon these adaptable and prolific omnivores ranged across much of the state. Around 1900, Santa Margarita Ranch superintendent Bill Magee introduced possums to the Santa Ana Mountains when he turned loose a pair he'd purchased from a circus in Capistrano. The marsupial in your persimmon tree is likely their distant relative.