PHOENIX (AP) -- A California condor that has a penchant for people, even allowing someone to pick it up, has been returned to captivity.
The unusual behavior alarmed overseers of a federal program who had released the giant bird to the wild in northern Arizona five months ago."This was an unusual condor. It walked right up to people," said Bill Heinrich of the Peregrine Fund, an Idaho-based organization that's heading the reintroduction program in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
"Scavenger species like condors are attracted to areas of high activity. In nature, activity signals the possibility of a food source," he said.
But contact with humans can be dangerous for condors and vice versa.
The year-old male, labeled Condor 86, approached people at three different locations. It was picked up at an airport near the Grand Canyon, authorities said Friday.
"The lack of fear of humans put the condor in danger -- a behavior that could have jeopardized other condors if he had taught them to approach humans," said Shawn Farry, the fund's condor field team leader. "When cornered, condors will use their powerful beak for protection. That's another reason not to approach them."
Peregrine Fund biologists first recaptured Condor 86 on March 25 after it spent an afternoon and an evening in a mulberry tree at a resort parking lot in Hurricane, Utah.
It was kept in a kennel until being released again April 2 at the horseshoe-shaped Vermilion Cliffs near the Grand Canyon.
But on April 4, the condor was seen approaching river rafters at Travertine Canyon on the Hualapai Indian Reservation and the following day spotted at the small airstrip and terminal area at Grand Canyon West.
The bird was placed in the Peregrine Fund's propagation center in Boise, Idaho. Eventually, it will be integrated into a captive breeding program either at the Idaho center, the Los Angeles Zoo where it was hatched or the San Diego Wild Animal Park.