Since July 2024, three Andean condor chicks have hatched at an artificial incubation program located near Bogotá, Colombia’s capital city, contributor Christina Noriega reported for Mongabay. The artificial incubation program is run by the Jaime Duque Park Foundation, a Colombian conservation nonprofit that has worked since 2015 to counter the birds’ population decline. Globally, the Andean condor (Vultur gryphus) is classified as vulnerable to extinction by the IUCN Red List, with an estimated 6,700 mature individuals remaining across the species’ range, largely concentrated in Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. But in Colombia and Ecuador, the species is considered critically endangered, with fewer than 150 birds left in the wild. In Venezuela, the species is believed to have already gone locally extinct. The chicks, named Rafiki, Wayra and Ámbar, hatched in July 2024, September 2025 and October 2025, respectively. “They are the salvation of the species,” Fernando Castro, director of biodiversity at the foundation, told Mongabay. Rafiki and Wayra, the two older chicks, are expected to be released this year near Cerrito, a high-altitude town in northeastern Colombia where nearly half of the nation’s condor population survives today. To boost condor survival, wildlife caretakers at Jaime Duque Park place each egg collected from captive condor nests in an oven-like incubator to provide warmth and safety. Andean condors typically raise one chick every 2-3 years, and first-time parents have been observed accidentally cracking their eggs, Castro told Noriega. But removing the egg from their nest often stimulates the birds to lay again, increasing the number of eggs…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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