Condor Couple Sit on an Artificial Egg — but a Chick Will Arrive in March

The dastardly caretakers at the Californian Condor Recovery Program have secretly taken away the real egg of a couple of common goals and replaced it with an artificial one! But all isn’t as sinister as it seems, as the switch was done to ensure the safety of the unhatched chick, with Californian condors being one of the most endangered species of bird in the world.

Sisquoc and Shatash have been taking turns incubating the artificial egg. A few days before the real egg hatches, it will be put back in the nest so the condor couple can raise the chick. Of course, you will be able to watch the chick hatched live on webcam on the San Diego Zoo Global website.

The Californian Condor Recovery Program was started in the 1980s to help protect the species. Since then, 165 condors have hatched at the San Diego Zoo safari park, 80 of which were released into the wild.
One of the condor couple is incubating the artificial egg. They're making fools out of them!

In the 1980s, there were only 22 Californian condors left alive. Thanks to the efforts to help the species, that number has no risen to around 400.