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The helicopter arrives bringing a California condor egg to the San Diego Zoo's Avian Propagation Center for hatching on February 23, 1983. Noel Snyder of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service carries the precious cargo in a padded egg case. This event was the result of an agreement between the San Diego Zoo, the Los Angeles Zoo, the National Audubon Society, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and the California Department of Fish & Game to remove eggs from the five known pairs of California condors left in the wild and bring them to zoos for hatching and raising.

1983

Conservation 1977 - 1986

Mission Possible: When the California Condor Recovery Program received permission to raise condors in zoos, there was no time to waste—and no one was taking any chances. The first egg collected from wild habitat was carried a protective case by Noel Snyder, condor biologist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and flown by helicopter to the San Diego Zoo on February 23, 1983, where it was carefully incubated at the Avian Propagation Center as everyone waited anxiously for it to hatch.

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