I just spent a few nights camping out at Pinnacles National Monument, far away from computers, cell phones, and the news.  It was wonderful, both being in nature and not beimg connected to the news or technology beyond basic camping gear. Our biggest problem was a gang of thieving raccoons who made off with a misplaced pack one night, and did so with amazing stealth.  They took it off a camp table and carried it away without waking people sleeping a few feet away.  We never did find the pack.

The monument lies about an hour and a half south of San Jose, and I met up with two Pagan friends for a few days of hiking and camping.  Pinnacles is a place of soaring cliffs, magickal caves, and a sanctuary of the rare California condor, North Americas biggest bird.  Too small for backpacking, Pinnacles is a perfect place for day hikes, from the very easy to the very challenging.  If the hiker is lucky he or she will see a condor.  (We were not , this time.)  In the spring and fall  it is a wonderful place to visit, but summers are extremely hot, at least for this fog lover.

After a particularly challenging but not all that long hike the day before that left me with a painful heel tendon, I left before our final hike.  For once I allowed wisdom to prevail over enthusiasm.  Even so, it was wonderful.

The California condor has become the symbol for Pinnacles.  It is an extraordinary bird, but one that was headed for certain extinction until rescued with a captive breeding program. Now it has been reintroduced to parts of its range from which it had been absent for many many decades, including the Grand Canyon and at Pinnacles.  Captive breeding was controversial because those bred under captive conditions were not really exposed to the pressures of the wild, and may lose the cultural adaptations that young animals, like young children, pick up from their parents.  Even so, sometimes there is no choice between the attempt and extinction.  A good friend of mine suggested extinction was preferable – “let them die in peace.”

I disagreed.  Humans caused the threatened extinction, and usually did so unintentionally.  Condors were threatened, and still are, because so-called “outdoorsmen” would rather use lead shot that poisons any animal that ingests it than hunt responsibly.  These pathetic excuses for outdooorsmen would rather water birds die from ingesting lead shot while getting small stones to help them digest their food or condors doe from ingesting lead while consuming an animal they shot and failed to carry out than be inconvenienced by using other shot. Thousands of waterfowl die annually from lead poisoning and the condors were driven to the edge of extinction by these  Narcissists masquerading as men.

I think of captive breeding is a kind of give-back to the more than human world by those humans in better touch with their own basic nature than those pathetic hunters.  One of the most unique things about (some) humans compared to other animals is our capacity to care for the ell-being of creatures of no value to us beyond the knowledge that they exist. Most people happy with the return of the condo will almost certainly never see one. The same holds for other creatures now hopefully being saved through captive breeding, such as the black footed ferret and the Channel Islands kit fox.

The successful return of these creatures gives me some hope that as a species we may yet prove a blessing for the rest of life on this earth.