"This is an amazingly compact, up-to-date history of the politics and biological research of the California Condor. It will be invaluable for biology students who want to review a case study of an endangered species and for environmental planners considering the highly political nature of rare-species conservation."—Allen Fish, Director, Golden Gate Raptor Observatory "As one of the most visible, dramatic, and controversial examples of intensive conservation management in modern times, the California Condor makes a good story. The Snyders' work is exemplary. This is a solid introduction to the subject and an excellent contribution to the press's natural history series."—Walter Koenig, Hastings Natural History Reservation, University of California

"This is an amazingly compact, up-to-date history of the politics and biological research of the California Condor. It will be invaluable for biology students who want to review a case study of an endangered species and for environmental planners considering the highly political nature of rare-species conservation."—Allen Fish, Director, Golden Gate Raptor Observatory "As one of the most visible, dramatic, and controversial examples of intensive conservation management in modern times, the California Condor makes a good story. The Snyders' work is exemplary. This is a solid introduction to the subject and an excellent contribution to the press's natural history series."—Walter Koenig, Hastings Natural History Reservation, University of California

Award-winning and best-selling author Sy Montgomery turns her talents to the story of California condors and the scientists who have fought against their extinction.

“A heart-stopping saga of the rescue from the very brink of extinction of one of the grandest of all birds.”—Thomas Lovejoy, president of the Amazon Biodiversity Center. RETURN OF THE CONDOR is the riveting account of one of the most dramatic attempts to save a species from extinction in the history of modern conservation. Features a new Afterword by the author. With the condor’s population down to only twenty-two birds in the 1980s and their very survival in doubt, the condor recovery team flouted conventional wisdom and pursued a controversial strategy to pull the bird back from the brink of extinction. Thus began the ongoing, decades-long program to reestablish America’s largest bird in its ancient home in Western skies. Award-winning science writer John Moir takes readers into the backcountry to get to know the recovery program scientists as well as some of the individual condors. These are stories of peril, uncertainty, and controversy. Woven throughout these tales of heartbreak and triumph is the extraordinary dedication of the humans who have sometimes risked their lives for this charismatic, intelligent, and social bird. Despite the program’s remarkable successes, the condor’s narrative is still unfolding with a number of challenges remaining. This includes the dilemma of lead poisoning among free-flying condors that is a major obstacle to the bird’s recovery. The new Afterword presents a compelling examination of the progress and continuing adversity facing the condor recovery effort since the first edition of the book was published. Finalist for the William Saroyan International Writing Prize from the Stanford University Libraries Honorable Mention from the National Association of Science Writers

An examination of the struggle to conserve biodiversity in urban regions, told through the story of the threatened coastal California gnatcatcher “A well-written and thoroughly researched book. . . . Provides a detailed examination of the struggle to conserve biodiversity in urban areas.”—Susan Catherine Cork, Conservation Biology The story of the threatened coastal California gnatcatcher is a parable for understanding the larger ongoing struggle to conserve biodiversity in regions confronted with intensifying urban development. Because this gnatcatcher depends on vanishing coastal sage scrub in Southern California, it has been regarded as a flagship species for biodiversity protection since the early 1990s. But the uncertainty of the gnatcatcher’s taxonomic classification—and whether it can be counted as a “listable unit” under the Endangered Species Act—has provoked contentious debate among activists, scientists, urban developers, and policy makers. Synthesizing insights from ecology, environmental history, public policy analysis, and urban planning as she tracks these debates over the course of the past twenty-five years, Audrey L. Mayer presents an ultimately optimistic take on the importance of much-neglected regional conservation planning strategies to create sustainable urban landscapes that benefit humans and wildlife alike.