Through the mid-1840s, most condors in what was to become the state of California led a prosperous, peaceful existence. Food for scavengers was at a post-Pleistocene - perhaps an all-time - high, with millions of head of livestock on the land, and hundreds of thousands of carcasses left to rot each year after their hides had been removed for the leather trade [1]. Indians in the lower Sacramento Valley and adjacent mountains were apparently killing condors on a regular basis (probably in small numbers; see Chapter 1 ), but elsewhere in California the environment was mostly benign. The entire non-Indian population, estimated at a mere 4,250 in 1830, had risen only to 5,780 by 1840 [2]. Most of these people were associated with the missions and presidios near the coast, and vast areas were essentially unpopulated by Europeans. Because all goods had to be brought from Mexico, and ships were often delayed reaching these outposts, firearms were scarce and lack of ammunition was a recurring problem. Probably little of it was wasted on the sport of shooting at big birds [3, 4].
In addition to Menzies' type specimen and the condors collected in the Pacific Northwest, another nine California condor specimens are known to have been in Europe before 1845. Five are of more or less certain origin. The other four are puzzling, in that there appear to have been few opportunities for collecting in California in the first 45 years of the 19th century. Looking first at the "known" condors, they include one collected by Ferdinand Deppe about 1835, and several taken by Ilya Voznesenskii in 1840-1841.
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Ferdinand Deppe was employed as a horticulturist in the royal gardens near Berlin, Germany, when he was selected to join Count Albert von Sack on a trip to Mexico to acquire natural history specimens for the local zoological museum. Deppe collected in Mexico from December 1824 to February 1827, mostly on his own as the Count turned out to be a difficult traveling companion. He spent 1827 and early 1828 in Berlin, then returned to Mexico in late summer 1828. Apparently he made his first trip to California in October 1829, then visited several more times until he sailed for the Hawaiian Islands in late October 1836. At various times, he visited (at least) San Diego, San Gabriel, Santa Barbara, Monterey, San Juan Bautista, San Jose, Santa Clara, and San Francisco [5, 6].
There is no question that Deppe secured a condor specimen - it still exists in the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. Unfortunately, the date and place of the acquisition are unknown. I suspect 1832 and 1835 are the most likely years, because these appear to be the years when he spent the most time traveling in California. (Most trips were probably as supercargo on the hide ships of his employer, Henry Virmond, with little time spent onshore.) Deppe sent a shipment of natural history specimens to Hamburg, Germany, from San Diego in May 1836, which might have included the condor [7]. However, no manifest has been found. None of Deppe's trips are well documented. Concerning California condors, he reported only that they were found in the mountains that paralleled the Pacific coastline [8]. So far, nothing has been found in writing that specifically addresses collection of his known condor specimen.
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Ferdinand Deppe was a prolific collector, sending back to Germany from Mexico over 20,000 specimens (mostly insects and plants, but almost 1,000 birds) in just one year [9]. A similar type of naturalist was the Russian Ilya Gavrilovich Voznesenskii who visited California in 1840-1841. He is perhaps best known for the ethnographic materials (garments, utensils, weapons) he took back to Russia from California and Alaska, but he also collected nearly 4,000 vertebrates (including almost 3,000 birds), 10,000 insects, and about 2,000 plants [10]. Among his birds were at least four California condors, plus a full condor skin used in Indian dances, and a robe constructed of condor, bald eagle and golden eagle feathers [11].
The travels of Voznesenskii in northern California are well documented in his journals. He sailed from Sitka, Alaska, 7 July 1840 on the Russian ship "Elena," landing at Bodega Bay (on the coast just north of San Francisco Bay) 20 July 1840. He was at Bodega Bay until 30 July 1840, then moved to the nearby Russian settlement at Fort Ross. He collected intensively over the next couple months, making a long trip north to Cape Mendocino in September or early October, and in October 1840 sent 10 crates of California biological and ethnological specimens to Russia on the "Nicolai I" headed from San Francisco to Sitka. On 23 October 1840 he rode horseback to San Rafael, then canoed to San Francisco. Between October 1840 and mid February 1841, he visited all parts of the San Francisco Bay area. On 20 February 1841 he went by boat to Sutter's Fort (at present-day Sacramento), and explored and collected in the vicinity until 2 April 1841. He returned to San Francisco, and on 11 April 1841 rode horseback from San Rafael back to Fort Ross. He collected many birds around Fort Ross in the next few months. In May and June 1841, he traveled the entire length of the Russian River, and on 16 June 1841 made what was apparently the first ascent by Europeans of Mt. Saint Helena, a rugged 4,400 foot peak on the border of present-day Napa and Sonoma counties. In July 1841, the Russians sold Fort Ross to John Sutter, and moved to Bodega Bay to begin their evacuation of California. Voznesenskii continued exploring and collecting in the area until he sailed for Sitka 5 September 1841 [12].
As detailed as is this itinerary, it only provides a general idea of where and when Voznesenskii obtained his condors. Only one of his condors has a currently known collection date: 17 May 1841 [13], when Voznesenskii was in the Russian River area of Sonoma or Mendocino counties. He obtained his dance skin (mollok, named for the Indian deity represented by the condor) while in the Sacramento Valley in March 1841 [14]. The best we can say of the others is that they came from northern California between July 1840 and September 1841.
I'm tantalized by the thought of what additional information on condors [and other California birds!] might be in the Voznesenskii journals. Only fragments have been published, mainly by ethnologists, and I am told that his notes were written in pencil and are now mostly indecipherable. Still, those who have tried to read them have been able to transcribe some wonderful passages about the lands he visited, and the people and wildlife he saw. If the published passages are an indication of the general richness of his narrative, then there is likely valuable zoological and botanical information that would be worth trying to extract. Perhaps someday someone will do more work on them.
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The four European condors of unknown origin were, respectively, in the London collection of John Flint South; exhibited in Scotland in 1837; in the Austrian collection of Christoph Fellner von Feldegg; and in the Duc de Rivoli collection in France.
(1) John Flint South (1797-1882) was a London anatomist, medical lecturer, and physician, associated with St. Thomas's Hospital and the Royal College of Surgeons. He accumulated a considerable collection of skeletal material of animals, including the full skeleton of a California condor. I have found nothing in his memoirs or in writings about him that addresses this collection. He developed an interest in comparative anatomy early in his surgeon apprenticeship (at age 16), and by late 1814 "became a very diligent visitor of the College museum" [15]. In 1820 he was appointed conservator of the museum, and in 1823 was a demonstrator of anatomy at the college. It is probably safe to say that his collection was well underway by this point. When he sold it to the Royal College of Surgeons in 1835, it included 70 skeletons and seven skulls [16]. The condor skeleton was identifiable at the Royal College Hunterian Museum as late as 1891 ("Californian Turkey-Vulture, Rhinogryphus californianus") [17]. Probably it was destroyed during World War II, when the College was bombed and two-thirds of its collection was lost [18]. I haven't found any clues as to how South acquired his bird.
(2) The story of the Scottish condor is a short one, so far. At the 18 February 1837 meeting in Edinburgh of the Wernerian Natural History Society, "there were exhibited to the meeting a very fine red orang-outang of Borneo, the great sloth from South America, a new species of eagle from Northern India, and the great Californian vulture" [19]. No condor specimens were known in Scotland at that time, and I haven't found the name of any Wernerian Society member otherwise linked to condors.
(3) The third early European mystery condor was in the collection of Christoph Fellner von Feldegg by 1842. Feldegg (1779-1845) apparently began collecting birds while serving in the Austrian army. Combining his own collecting with various purchases, he amassed some 4,500 specimens. After his death, the collection was auctioned off, and in 1852 the condor was among a number of Feldegg specimens acquired by the National Museum in Prague, Czech Republic, where it remains to this day. The condor specimen was included in an 1842 catalogue of Feldegg's collection, but no information was given except that it was obtained in "Neu-Californien" (the area of the current state of California; "Old California" being Baja California, Mexico) [20].
(4) The fourth California condor of unknown origin was in the Paris, France, collection of Victor Massena, Prince d'Essling, Duc de Rivoli. In 1846 Dr. Thomas B. Wilson, working through his brother Edward Wilson (who lived in England), bought the entire Rivoli collection of some 12,500 bird specimens. Although Wilson kept legal possession until 1860, the Rivoli birds were immediately placed in the Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), and Wilson even provided funds to build additional space at the Academy to house the acquisitions [21, 22].
The California condor specimen had the number 948 in the Rivoli collection; unfortunately, the only other information that came with the bird was that it was collected in California [23]. The Academy initially gave it number 14 in their collection [24]; later renumbering changed its designation to Academy specimen number 42 [25]. This condor was identifiable in the Academy collection as late as 1905 [26], but had disappeared before 1941.
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Where and when could these four California condor specimens have originated? Perhaps we can eliminate (or, at least, ignore) the John Flint South skeleton by assuming (perhaps erroneously) that it belonged with one of the several condor skins in the London area at that time. Flint certainly knew the museum people around London, and his collection was a logical repository for a skeleton. That still leaves three condors with no obvious ties to anyone or anywhere else.
Between 1786 and 1842, a dozen or so European ships with some level of scientific staff on board landed in California. Most remained only a week or so, and most visited only San Francisco Bay or Monterey. (Two parties traveled inland to the vicinity of Sacramento.) Most visitors left enough of a written record for present-day researchers to feel confident that - except in the cases of Menzies, Deppe and Voznesenskii - California condors were not collected and taken back to Europe [27]. There is one possible exception: Paolo-Émilio Botta.
Botta (1802-1870) is best known as an archeologist, famous for his discovery of the ancient site of Ninevah (at present-day Mosul, Iraq), and later as French Consul in Mosul. But as a member of the crew of Captain Auguste Duhaut-Cilly's ship Le Heros, he visited a number of ports in California in 1827 and 1828, and collected a number of animal specimens. From the information given in Duhaut-Cilly's journal, I estimate the crew spent some 32 weeks ashore, divided roughly as follows: San Francisco Bay area, 45 days; Santa Cruz, 7 days; Monterey, 57 days; Santa Barbara, 23 days; San Pedro Bay - Los Angeles area, 27 days; and San Diego Bay, 68 days [28].
No list of Botta's California specimens has been found, and it has been assumed that his collecting effort was minor [29]. The amount of time spent on-shore, coupled with some of Duhaut-Cilly's journal entries, suggest otherwise. For example, while at San Francisco Bay in January 1827, he wrote of the "large number" and "astonishing variety" of ducks, sea birds, quail, rabbits and hares that they shot for the dinner table. He continued:
"As for the collection I was engaged in with Dr. Botta, our quests were not less fruitful: on the seashore a swarm of beautiful shore-birds; in the woods and on the hills, several fine species of hawk and other birds of prey; in the thickets, magpies, blackbirds, sparrows and several frugivorous birds all different from ours; finally, in the heath, a pretty species of humming-bird, perhaps the smallest existing, with a head and throat of glowing fire" [30].
At Santa Cruz in early February 1827, Duhaut-Cilly described his pleasure in seeing kingfishers, "red-ducks" [cinnamon teal?], and white herons [egrets]. He then jestingly suggested they were all in danger from Botta:
"There would be, truly, some offset if Dr. Botta were to renew frequently his collection of skins of California birds; for during the two days he passed at Santa Cruz, he threw a little confusion into the habits of these poor creatures; and I even believe I should, in justice, blame myself for a part of this cruel invasion" [31].
At San Pedro Bay in early March 1827, they "shot some rabbits and a small species of owl which makes its nest upon the ground and lives in families" [32]. Later, in March at San Diego, they described the roadrunner; it and Anna's hummingbird are Botta's best known specimens [33].
Unless further information is found on Botta's activities, we'll never know if he took a condor back to Europe. It is suggestive that he collected "several fine species of hawk and other birds of prey;" that at least two of Botta's birds went directly into the collection of the Duc du Rivoli [34]; and that the Rivoli collection contained a California condor. To me, Botta seems the best source for the Rivoli condor.
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Who else could have taken condors to Europe before 1845? Options seem to be limited to Ferdinand Deppe and Ilya Voznesenskii.
Common belief is that Deppe collected only one California condor, the one still located in Berlin. It is true that Deppe was collecting primarily for the Berlin museum, and that many of his specimens went to that institution. What isn't generally known is that Deppe, through his brother Wilhelm Deppe, was trading and selling specimens elsewhere. Concerning his collections in Mexico in 1828-1829: "While a part of these natural history treasures were acquired by Berlin institutions, Wilhelm Deppe did his best trying to sell the rest of the objects for his brother's and [Wilhelm] Schiede's benefit to London, Paris, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Copenhagen, Leiden and various German collections" [35]. An 1830 price list of 169 specimens of natural history and ethnographic items has also been found, signed by Wilhelm Deppe [36]. These two lists predate Deppe's time in California, and it isn't known if later specimens were offered for sale, but it does suggest that Deppe could have been the source of more than one condor in Europe.
Voznesenskii collected at least four California condors, only two of which are still at St. Petersburg. One of the missing birds is almost certainly in Paris, at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, received in trade from St. Petersburg in 1856 [Record X, page X]. It has been suggested that the Feldegg-Czech Republic bird is the other. In the 1840s, the St. Petersburg museum exchanged specimens with the Frankfurt/Main Museum in Germany. Feldegg exchanged specimens with the Frankfurt Museum about that time [37]. Could one of Voznesenskii's specimens have reached Feldegg in time to be included on his 1842 collection list? It seems barely possible. We don't know when Voznesenskii killed his first condor, but his first shipment of specimens from California was placed on a Russian-bound ship at San Francisco 16 October 1840 [38]. His voyage from Russia to the west coast of North America had taken eight months. Assuming a similar time for the return trip (and with weather delays, ship repairs, and business en route it seems unlikely the trip could have taken less time), the shipment would not have reached Russian before May or June 1841. Allowing for unpacking time, some minimal curating, and communication between the exchanging museums, the condor would have been a very last minute addition to Feldegg's 1842 collections list. Unfortunately, Feldegg's list did not place his acquisitions in chronological order, so "barely possible" is the best that can be said.