For the time period 1794 through 1844, I've accumulated 22 records of condor mortality. Certainly those weren't all of the human-related condor deaths in those 50 years - I continue to locate records not on my earlier lists, and surely not everyone who killed a condor in those years left a written report of it. Nevertheless, considering how few people were on the Pacific Coast, where they lived, and what opportunities were available to them for killing condors, I think it's safe to conclude that the overall take was small. That was not true of the next 50 years, as shown by just the next fifteen.
It took only ten years after 1844 to match the previous 50-year total of 22 mortality records, and in the next five years (1856-1860) eighteen more were added. Some of this loss was attributable to the same random, opportunistic natural history collecting of earlier years, but two new reasons for killing condors were added in the late 1840s and the 1850s. The first, collecting to specifically meet a growing demand for condor specimens, will be discussed in later chapters. The second, accounting for almost half of the documented losses between 1845 and 1860, was the killing of condors merely for sport or out of curiosity.
In 1840, there were less than 10,000 non-Indian people in what would become the states of Washington, Oregon and California. By 1850, as a result of the California "Gold Rush" and the continuing westward movement of settlers, the Pacific Coast "European" population was over 100,000; by 1860, 400,000; and by 1870 it was over 600,000 [1]. The mere increase in human numbers in the condors' range would likely have resulted in increased condor losses, but the arrivals of the "Gold Rush" period had two attributes that proved deadly to the condors: they came with an amazing number of firearms, and with lots of time on their hands to use the artillery.
As one contemporary author described the westward movement: "The emigrants were walking arsenals, armed to the teeth with rifles, shotguns, and revolvers, supposedly to hunt buffalo and defend themselves from Indians" [2]. The guidebooks read by the emigrants urged every man to take "a good rifle, and , if convenient, a pair of pistols, five pounds of powder, and ten pounds of lead" [3]. "Ignorant of guns and camping life except for what they had heard or read in legend and literature, thousands of city and rural men studied John C. Fremont's famous Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in the Year 1842 and to Oregon and North California in the Years 1843-'44 and accounts of other western travelers. In part motivated by such reading and by the traditional fear of Indians, these emigrants purchased a remarkable number of guns, an impulse encouraged by the U. S. War Department's February 1849 offer to sell pistols, rifles and ammunition at cost to California (and Oregon) emigrants" [4].
So many firearms in the hands of inexperienced owners resulted in a high incidence of gunshot injuries and deaths; in fact, one researcher rated guns as causing the greatest number of wagon train accidents (ahead of drownings, being crushed by wagon wheels, and being injured handling domestic animals) [5]. The novelty of the new firearms, and lack of the supposed legitimate reasons for having them (killing food and killing Indians), encouraged the travelers to amuse themselves. One 49er beginning his trip west by riverboat described some extracurricular activities:
"We have amused ourselves all the way down the river shooting at wild ducks, and when no men were around, we would shoot at hogs, dogs, etc. on the shore. Thirty or forty rifles fired all at the same time would hurry a dog some! By the time we get among the Pawnees, we will be able to take their eyes out without much trouble" [6].
Not all these firearms made it to California. By the time the travelers reached western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming, the need to lighten their loads resulted in discarding everything that wasn't essential. This included many weapons. At Fort Laramie, "rifles are thrown by the dozen into the river and worthless white beans almost cover the ground and old stoves almost without number are thrown away" [7]. By the time they reached the Humboldt River in Nevada "few men carried guns--in fact, most rifles had been thrown away" [8].
Despite all this load lightening, many firearms made it over the mountains to California. In testimony before the United States Senate, Navy Lieutenant W. May wrote:
"When I left California [in November 1849], the country was completely glutted with every description of weapon.." [9].
This excess of weaponry in the turmoil of newly-established mining camps led to many armed confrontations and deaths. In the decade of the 1850s, Tuolumne County (in the heart of the Mother Lode) alone had 156 homicides, many of them gun-related. The communities were settling down somewhat by the 1860s, but Tuolumne County still registered 96 homicides [10]. From 1865 through 1869, Tuolumne County with a population of 8,150 had 38 homicides; the entire state of Vermont (population 330,551) had two [11].
Of course, men shooting one another in mining camps has no direct relationship to condors being killed. But the factors leading to the lawlessness of California at the turn of the 19th Century also increased the potential for condor losses: large increases in human populations, many guns, men away from their families with few diversions, hard work with very little profit for most of them in the gold fields, and long periods when they could not mine because of dry streams in the summer and inclement weather in winter. The means (lots of guns) and the motives (boredom, coupled with a curiosity to see these giant birds up close) came together in California in the middle of the 19th century.
There didn't seem to be any animosity or maliciousness in the condor shooting; it was just something to do. The reports were matter-of-fact. J. D. B. Stillman wrote about an incident near the confluence of the Sacramento and Feather rivers in September 1849:
"Just before night, Mark [Hopkins] shot a large bird in the top of a tree, which we thought was a wild turkey. It was directly over our heads, and fell into the water alongside the boat. It measured nine feet from tip to tip of wings, and its head and neck were bare of feathers and of a yellow color. It was of the vulture family, though we pronounced it a 'golden eagle' for want of a better name" [12].
A month later, in the hills northeast of Hopkins' locale, J. Goldsborough Bruff made passing reference to a condor shooting in his trip notes of an average day on the trail: "6 dead and 1 abandoned ox on road Saw on the road side a small black & yellow fox, dead, also a dead deer, and numerous remains of them. Shot a large very brown Vulture, measuring 9 feet from tip to tip" [13].
The editor of the Sacramento Daily Union embellished his story a little bit, but the basic tale was the same - condor shot and measured:
"A vulture of enormous proportions was shot on the American river, near the store of Woods & Kenyon, in El Dorado county, a few days since, which measured nine feet from tip to tip of its wings. A friend presented us with a quill, which is a quill from one of its wings, with the remark that it was handed to us as a weapon with which to defend the rights of the people. We shall endeavor to apply it to that purpose" [14].
Later the same summer, another condor yielded a primary feather to a newspaper editor: "The Editor of the Marysville Herald may well 'plume himself' on the receipt of a vulture's quill measuring twenty-four inches in length. The bird measured nine feet four inches from tip to tip of the wings. It was shot near Chico" [15].
Alfred Doten, later to become owner and editor of the Gold Hill (Nevada) Daily News, had his own close encounter with a condor near the south end of San Francisco Bay in 1858: "Seth shot a big black Eagle measuring 9 feet and an inch from tip to tip of his wings - the largest bird I ever saw - he is, I think, properly called the 'California Condor' instead of 'baldheaded eagle' as Emerson calls it - it weighed nineteen pounds " [16].
* * *
These random records from journals and newspapers certainly document an increase in condor mortality, but they don't tell us the magnitude of the increase. Did most of the losses get documented, or is the record I've developed so far just a small view of a much bigger scene? Obviously, many (most?) people shooting condors would not have been keeping journals with details of their shooting activities, and most would not have had a local newspaper editor to whom they could present a condor feather. On the other hand, killing and measuring "from tip to tip" made a popular news item through the 1860s and 1870s. Because there was no stigma attached to shooting a condor, probably more of the deaths made the news than was the case toward the start of the 20th century, when the activity was becoming less "politically correct."
I think it's possible - I'm almost willing to say likely - that the loss of condors during the Gold Rush and early post-Gold Rush period was substantially greater than the existing records indicate. The social and economic situation in one small area of central California, the East Bay redwoods, was repeated in many other communities. The impact on condors might have been repeated in some of them, also.
When I was growing up in Oakland in the 1940s and 1950s, I often hiked in Redwood Regional Park and adjacent Joaquin Miller Park, and enjoyed the cool wildness of steep canyons filled with redwood trees. At the time, I had no idea that these redwood groves had once been part of a substantial redwood forest. Even though I was avid in my interest in birds, I was unaware that my favorite hiking area had once been habitat for what was apparently a substantial population of California condors. In the 1840s, both were facts.
Commercial logging began in the East Bay redwoods in the early 1840s, undertaken (not always entirely legally) by seamen who had deserted their ships in San Francisco Bay [17]. However, Santa Cruz redwoods were much nearer the coast, making shipping more economical, and John Sutter began significant development of lumber mills in the Sierra. Cutting in the East Bay waned, but picked up again about 1845 as American immigrants began to arrive in California and sought occupations. Gold fever caused desertion of the woods for awhile, but before long the demand for lumber was evident, and operations began anew. The likelihood of making a fortune in the gold field fell rapidly [18]. "Soon many a disillusioned miner was hurrying back to the redwoods of the East Bay hills" [19]. In late 1849, the human population of "Redwoods" was 100 or more. The 1853 election rolls show that there had been 300 to 400 people in the woods, enough to have established a Redwoods precinct, but the community was already in decline. In December 1853, James Lamson reported the drastic changes in his part of the woods.
"An important change has been in progress for some time past in the Redwoods. Three or four months ago I was surrounded by a deep, dense forest, in which was a busy population at work. But this industry fast swept away the forest, and as the timber grew scarce, they began to remove to other places. They continued to go until our society was reduced to ten men, living in a little cluster of four cabins. But even this colony has taken a sudden resolution to migrate, and this morning the last man went, and I am left alone. So now, nothing remains for me but to go too, which as shall do as soon as I can determine where" [20]. By 1857 almost all the redwoods and almost all the people were gone from the East Bay [21].
Luckily, for historical information on the condors of the East Bay, Lamson did not immediately leave Redwoods. He stayed through 1854, visiting with the few people remaining in the area, and observing the condors that obviously were using the area as a major roosting site. On 9 February 1854, he wrote in his journal:
"I saw six or eight vultures perched on the trees, sitting in perfect idleness, and scarcely moving. A man was cutting up a fallen tree near one of them, but his labors did not seem in the least degree to disturb the bird. Another one sat on a low tree which I approached. When I arrived within less than gunshot distance he half spread his wings and stood up, as if preparing to fly. But after a moment's hesitation he folded his pinions again, and seemed to have come to the conclusion that there was no danger from a man with only a stick in his hand. As I continued to approach the tree on which he stood, he thrust his head down below his body, and turned it about most whimsically, while he kept his keen eye fastened upon me, as though he were quizzing me; but still he showed no disposition to fly. I now began to shout at him, and to swing my cap; and in faith, it seemed as if my noise and gesticulations served rather to amuse than to frighten him. Then I threw my cane up in the air towards him, but he only gave his head an extra cant, and continued peering at me with such an impudent, derisive no-ye-don't sort of a look, that I almost expected to see him raise his thumb to his nose and shake his fingers at me. Finding him thus firmly resolved not to be driven from his position, I left him, firmly believing that if a man wants to hunt California vultures, their shyness will be no obstacle to his success" [22].
Two days previously he had written that he had observed "a scattering flock of more than fifty California Vultures [that] flew over the forest in the morning. Seeing them sailing past in greater numbers than I had before observed them, and all in one direction, I began to count them. In a few moments I counted twenty-five, while those that preceded them and those that followed, all within an hour, must have exceeded that number."
Given the condors' habit circling back and forth, and dropping below the ridge line and reappearing, he may not have seen fifty different birds. He obviously saw quite a few.
Lamson's 9 February comment about the ease with which condors could be killed was not idle speculation. Already in 1854, he knew of five California condors that had been shot at Redwoods. On 2 February, he wrote: "I was standing at the door of my cabin, when I heard the report of a rifle, and turning my eyes in the direction of the sound, I saw a California Vulture fall to the ground. I hastened up the cañon, and speedily purchased the bird of the owner, who did not place a very high value on it."
On 4 February: "I went up the cañon to see the man, Mr. Currie, Kentuckian, of whom I had bought the California Vulture. I saw there a young man, Currie's son, who told me he had shot another Vulture three weeks before, and had thrown it away. He directed me where to find the body, and I went in search of it, intending to preserve the skeleton, but when I found it a very important portion of the bird, the head, was wanting, which rendered it worthless for a skeleton. So I cut off the wings and tail, which I took home."
His 9 February journal entry had begun with three other condor shootings: "In a long walk a few days since I encountered an old man by the side of the road engaged in making shingles. He was a very coarse looking fellow, with a dark complexion, and a black bushy beard that more than half covered his face, He was an old Kentucky rifleman, and, as I afterwards learned, a first rate marksman. He had shot a vulture some days before, and it was lying near his cabin half decayed. Some quills were scattered over the ground, and I picked up two or three of them, when he ordered me in the rudest manner to leave them. I then proposed to buy some of them, but he would neither sell nor give them away.. Today I passed his cabin again, and he accosted me with considerable civility. A sort of grim smiled played on his harsh features, his manners were wonderfully softened, and the gruff old savage seemed to have been suddenly transformed into a half civilized being. He had shot two vultures yesterday, though one of them, which he had only wing tipped, and tied to a stake, had made his escape. He had been thinking of me since he killed the bird, and wished I had it, for he perceived that I was very desirous to obtain a specimen. He now offered to sell it to me, and the payment of five bits made me its owner."
Lamson tried to preserve this purchased condor skin, but the excessively fat and greasy carcass thwarted his amateur efforts, and he threw it away. On 22 March: "Anxious to procure another skin to replace that of the California Vulture I had lost, I borrowed a rifle yesterday, and took it up the mountain to young Currie, the Kentuckian. His father had gone up the bay and carried his rifle with him. Currie had found an opportunity to use the rifle and this morning he came down the mountain bringing a Vulture he had just shot. It was not quite so large as the last, its alar extent being but nine feet and its weight 20 pounds."
I haven't found any information on what happened to that condor carcass, nor to the last one Lamson mentioned as having been in his keeping. On 30 October 1854 a teamster brought him a live condor that had been lassoed while feeding on a cow carcass. Lamson kept the condor four days, but it died "having probably been wounded in his capture."
The condor situation at Redwoods was almost certainly unusual; probably not many communities sprang up in the middle of a major condor roosting area. Because there were so many condors in such vulnerable circumstances, the kill was probably unusually high. But if the condor situation was unique, the human situation at Redwoods was typical of many areas in California during and just after the Gold Rush. Even when mining was relatively good, there was of necessity a lot of idle time. As the easy gold played out, or as disillusion and discouragement built, miners moved on to other situations. Some returned to their homes in the East, but many couldn't afford the trip and many were ashamed to be returning as "failures." They moved to somewhere like the East Bay redwoods; stayed until the job ran out; waited around with nothing to do until a new opportunity arose or they decided it was time to go; then moved on again [23]. There may have been no more situations quite like Redwoods, but opportunities for idle shooting were everywhere.