A Celebration of Prey-go-neesh: 18 Wild Condors in Yurok Country

Tali Trillo, NEC Staff

This article is informed by Northern California Condor Restoration Program (NCCRP) Crew Members: Ryan Matilton, Gage Rowlan, Madeleine Rifka (aka Maddy), Chris West, Evelyn Wilhelm. It also references “Bringing Back Prey-go-neesh, the California Condor, to my Tribe’s Homeland,” an article from May 2022 by Tiana Williams-Claussen. She is one of the Yurok tribal members at the forefront of Prey-go-neesh (Yurok word for California Condor) restoration in Yurok Country, including being the Director of the Yurok Tribe’s Wildlife Department and co-creator of NCCRP.

Part One: Meeting Prey-go-neesh

Prey-go-neesh is of deep cultural importance to many tribes throughout California and the Pacific Northwest. For the Yurok, this is due to [the condor’s] relationship with world renewal and our reason for being. Many families, my own included, taught that the condor was a sacred creature, not to be harmed. Prey-go-neesh was amongst the first spirits of the world, and helped teach us how to establish and maintain balance, and to live in a good way. Considered a kind-hearted spirit, and one of renewal, [the condor] helped establish our world renewal ceremonies, providing a song and a prayer that we continue to sing today, and carrying our prayers to the heavens when asking for the world to be in balance. (May 2022 via allaboutbirds.org)

It is dark. We speak in whispers and hand gestures. Silhouettes of crew members gather field gear. Maddy Rifka (role) waves me over to a door with a small window and curtain. “Ready?” she asks. I walk closer. She moves the curtain aside, revealing an outdoor flight pen. A jolt bursts through my body when I finally see them: Prey-go-neesh.

Have you ever watched prehistoric giants wake with the sunrise? Until this moment, neither have I. It is my first time meeting Prey-go-neesh. How surreal it feels to stand a few feet away from fantastical creatures I have only read about. Side-by-side, three condors rest on wooden perches. Their velvety feathers shimmer a reflection of the purpled sky. They look toward hillsides of trees, birds, critters, and winds singing songs of welcome for their impending return.

We are at the NCCRP release site on the early morning of October 3, 2024. To protect the condors from disturbance, like poaching, the site location remains undisclosed. Excluding myself, the people present have various roles in NCCRP, including technicians, wildlife biologists, and media support. 

Today’s gathering is one of celebration: the release of two condors named A8 and A9. Their transition to freedom would conclude this year’s cohort of seven condors joining the previously eleven other free-flying Prey-go-neesh in Yurok Country.

Part Two: Brief History of Yurok Condor Restoration 

Condors nearly went extinct by the 1980s due to years of settler invasion and its countless weapons of destruction, especially the impacts of lead poisoning from hunting. Still today, all free-flying Prey-go-neesh are closely monitored with regular health checks, including tracking the presence of lead, as this toxin remains the primary cause of death. 

In response to their threat of extinction, breeding and restoration projects for condors were established in southern and central California, as well as in Arizona. They developed captivity-breeding programs in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Where the known condor population in the 1980s plummeted to 22 birds, there now exists over 500.

California and Arizona’s programmatic research, trials, and lessons for decades greatly shaped what became the Northern California Condor Restoration Program (NCCRP). For example, through releasing condors at different ages and observing their successes and challenges in the wild, the programs found that mortality rates and difficulties to adapt were highest when condors were released younger than one year of age, or older than three years. A8 and A9 are both 2.5 years old, which puts them in the range of the highest potential for survival, adaptation, and prosperity as free-flying birds. 

Though condors have only been released in Yurok Country since 2022, the process of re-introducing Prey-go-neesh in Humboldt County began years ago. In 2003, a group of Yurok elders and tribal members came together “to prioritize the natural and cultural restoration needs of [the] tribe’s people and land—choos[ing] Prey-go-neesh as the single most important land-based species to restore” (allaboutbirds.org). At the time, the Tribe’s fisheries department was already working full-steam on the recovery of salmon, another culturally invaluable species. From 2008 to 2016, Tiana Williams-Claussen and Chris West (wildlife biologist and NCCRP program manager) conducted feasibility analyses, surveys, and field preparation to establish NCCRP. And in 2022, NCCRP finally began releasing the first cohort of Prey-go-neesh—the first to soar through Yurok lands in over a century. 

Each Prey-go-neesh release happens similarly. The birds are transferred from breeding programs and put in a flight pen for an acclimatization period that lasts at least 28 days. In the case of A8 and A9, they moved from the Oregon Zoo in late August 2024 to the Yurok flight pen and, since then, passed the time needed for acclimation. Once ready, the gates of the pre-release pen are opened in the early morning of the release day. The condors must voluntarily leave by 4pm. If they do not leave, the crew closes the release doors, to assure overnight safety of the birds, and tries again the following day or the next best day, depending on factors that would impact a successful release. Having a cutoff time at 4pm allows enough hours of daylight to monitor the newly free-flying condor, such as ensuring they integrate well with the other wild Prey-go-neesh and find shelter for the night. 

Part Three:  A Conversation With Ryan

In ceremony, growing up, I would see [condor] feathers in regalia. I knew what all the regalia was made of: woodpeckers, otters, eagle feathers, flicker feathers, pigeon feathers. But there were always these big, black feathers. As a kid, I was like “I don’t know what those belong to.” They were condor feathers. I never saw [condors]. I never saw them in my environment as a kid. But now? It’s pretty sweet that kids are going to see those [feathers] and know those are condor feathers. –Ryan Matilton 

Hours have passed since meeting Prey-go-neesh. Under the afternoon heat, Ryan and I scramble to find shade. Madrone trees’ shadows cast a bit of solace, as we huddle under its leaves. We are with other crew members, hidden at a vantage point away from the release site. Talking in hushed tones as we wait for A8 and A9 to leave the pen, we try to avoid being noticed by the free-flying condors and other birds hanging around the site.  

Ryan points to a village nearby that is one of his ancestral homelands. He is not only a Yurok descendant but is also a Hoopa Tribal member, connected to many local lands. After working as a research assistant for NCCRP, he now holds the role of Wildlife Biologist for the Yurok Tribe. We discuss the cultural significance of Prey-go-neesh to him and his hopes for the restoration program. He shares:

The condor is seen as the Highest flying in the sky. And because of that, we believe they carry our prayers to the heavens. Through ceremony, we can lift [prayers] part of the way, but the condor takes it the rest of the way to the heavens. So that they can be heard. [Condors] are actually THE most significant animal for the Yurok Tribe, if I must say so myself. 

The whole story of the condors, too, kind of coincides, in my opinion, with the boarding school system and how my elders were taken. A lot of them were taken. My great-great grandmother, Rose, went to Chemawa. She escaped and ran away a few times. So they shipped her out to Carlisle over in Pennsylvania, so she couldn’t run away. 

But she came back. She passed her knowledge on to my grandmother. Her cultural knowledge. It wasn’t beaten out of her [in the boarding schools]. She was able to hold onto it and bring it back. 

The condor was beaten back by lead, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), and other human-caused environmental factors…It reminds me of when our elders started coming back. Teaching again. Teaching the culture again. The condor is a piece of our culture.

…That goes on to even the acquisition of condor feathers. Now we have a bunch of condor feathers that are from our condors, that can be in ceremony. It’s still great to get condor feathers from somewhere else, you know, but these are pretty special.

I hope [condors] keep on coming for now. We’re definitely going to need to get more. Hopefully in ten years, they’ll start breeding. I think we gotta take it a step at a time. Yeah, I can say, “I hope they’re all over the place. In twenty years, I hope there are hundreds of them.” Right now, I’ll settle for the first hatched wild condor chick. Then, I’ll go from there. That’s what I gotta see first is the hatch, one that’s truly from here. That’ll be pretty exciting. 

While Ryan and I talk, I notice six of the wild Prey-go-neesh in search of relief from the heat, too. This is my first time witnessing condors in flight—their wingspan able to reach nearly 10 feet long, casting eclipse-like shadows overhead. I experience firsthand what Ryan means when describing these raptors as the Highest in the sky.

A small pool next to the release site attracts the six Prey-go-neesh. One by one, they fly or hop over to the pool, forming a small circle and socializing while cooling off. I notice there is a variety of ages represented, as some of the condors have red hues in their face while others do not. The team explains to me that this color transition happens during hormonal changes, beginning around 3 years of age. I watch the friendly flock of Prey-go-neesh, wondering what stories and tea they are spilling to each other. 

After waiting for a few more hours, Chris calls team members on the radios, making the decision to close the pre-release pen and wait to attempt again tomorrow.

Part Four: Two Join the Skies 

The following morning, on October 4th, A8 and A9 were successfully released! Shortly after opening the gates, at 7:48am and 7:51am, they walked out of the pen with ease. What a difference a day can make for Prey-go-neesh to be ready to greet the skies. 

Their releases brought the wild flock to a total of 18 Prey-go-neesh in this part of Yurok Country. It additionally means that 2024 has had the largest condor cohort released since NCCRP began, at seven total new free-flying Prey-go-neesh this year. A8 and A9  will soon be given Yurok names once their unique behaviors and personalities are noted. I wonder how curious they will become, what beings they will befriend, whose ceremonies will receive their feathers’ medicine, what prayers their wings will carry to the spirit world. 

Each release day is a celebration; a long awaited reunion of Prey-go-neesh to lands and winds and creatures that have loved them for thousands of years. 

___

This article is the first of a series called PREY-GO-NEESH: Stories From Yurok Country, in collaboration with NCCRP, where we will be sharing regular Prey-go-neesh updates and notes from Yurok Country. NCCRP is a partnership between the Yurok Tribe and Redwood National and State Parks. For more information about the condor project or watch the Yurok Condor Live Feed, visit yuroktribe.org/yurok-condor- restoration-program. 

Much gratitude to Maddy for her initial bridge-building of the NEC and NCCRP. We met earlier this year and became friends through cultural fire work at the Karuk Women’s+ Prescribed Fire Training Exchange. Check out her photos of cultural fire, Prey-go-neesh, and other wild relatives at maddyrifka.com.