Yurok

A large, dark bird flies over a forest.

Recently released condors thrive in redwoods country

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Eight young California condors last July took the skies, following the Klamath River toward the ocean near Redwood National and State Parks in Northern California. The birds finally settled for the night near Blue Creek, the lowest of the Klamath …

A black bird with white underwings soars with its wings spread in a clear blue sky

Saving prey-go-neesh, the endangered California condor

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Research supported by Save the Redwoods League could help inform work in re-establishing a flock of endangered California condors near Redwood National Park. The Yurok Tribe and Redwood National Park are working together to re-establish the prey-go-neesh, the Yurok name …

Smith River

Six picturesque places to paddle in the redwoods

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Traveling on foot, wheels, and hooves are some ways to see the world’s tallest trees, but there’s nothing like paddling past magnificent coast redwood forests on beautiful rivers. These are the realms of playful river otters, magnificent ospreys, and at …

condor release

Time to spy a rare bird in the sky

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Next time you visit Redwood National and State Parks, you may see California condors taking flight among the redwoods. California condors, magnificent creatures that have been absent from this area for more than a century, were nearly extinct by the 1980s. Thanks to a monumental conservation effort and successful captive breeding program, there are now wild condor populations in Central and Southern California, Arizona, and Baja Mexico. Now, condors may even be returning to Northern California skies.

Yurok Tribe members fishing with netting by a river.

Revitalizing a River Through the Redwoods

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The Klamath is the second largest river in California, flowing 257 miles through Oregon and Northern California and emptying into the Pacific Ocean. There, it bisects the Yurok Reservation and Redwood National and State Parks, a World Heritage site that …

A California condor glides over Big Sur, California. Photo by Sebastian Kennerknecht/Minden Pictures.

Soaring Soon

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Federal agencies and the Yurok Tribe have partnered to reintroduce California condors to Redwood National and State Parks. Before too long, visitors to Redwood National and State Parks may spy the condors, which have been missing from the area for more than 100 years.

Young woman paddling a redwood canoe on the river

Redwoods Are a Living Part of Yurok Culture

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More than just other humans and animals, we also care for the trees and the rivers, and that truth holds a really big place in my heart for nature.

The California condor is listed as "Critically Endangered." Pacific Southwest Region USFWS, Flickr Creative Commons

A Second California Condor Comeback is on the Horizon

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California condors have been absent from the Pacific Northwest for over a century. But the Yurok tribe — whose ancestors lived along the Klamath River in Northern California — still revere and celebrate them. The sight of a condor flying over the redwoods has been erased from living memory, and, as tribe chairman Thomas P. O’Rourke told Audubon last March, “His absence is a hole in our hearts.”

California condor. Photo by Mike's Birds, Flickr Creative Commons

California Condor to Soar in the Redwoods Once More

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After disappearing from the Pacific Northwest over a century ago, wild California condors may once again find ample nesting, breeding, and foraging habitat in the redwood range.