Condors

I was on duty chauffeuring, drinking coffee at the base of the tram.  A guy zoomed up in his wheel chair.  "Is that a computer?" he asked, in child-like wonder.  Hadn't seen an Air before. I emphasized it was light weight (unlike its owner).

Then who should walk in to the scene but Brian Sharp, one of our Wanderers, but often remote, in central Oregon, and mostly contacting by list (Yahoo group).  We talked for awhile about this and that, then it was off to Providence, from OHSU.  Back to OHSU later.

Brian followed pilot projects to reintroduce the condors to North America.  They'd had a life here in Oregon, per records, but have long since died out.  Brian does not see a way to bring them back in our particular era; the problems are insoluble at the moment.  But he has been working on a book about what it used to be like, and why they once thrived here.  That book is due out soon.

Why they can't survive now traces mainly to man-made substances in the environment that subvert their lifestyle.  Lead shot in animal carcasses proves toxic over time, but also the pabulum they regurgitate to infants:  these have more plastics in them, fragments of non-biodegradable things.  These tend to clog up digestive systems.  Not enough survive to make it a viable community.

Brian was recently back from a San Diego championship tournament wherein his soccer team was best in the over-64 class. He's run the circumference of planet Earth three times if you add up his frequent player soccer miles.