Sacramento-Audubon of California and Assemblymember Nava announced today that he will be honored for his work to save the California condor.

"It is an honor to receive this award from Audubon of California on behalf of my work to protect the California condor," said Nava.  “I have to share this recognition with the many people and groups that helped me along the way. I am humbled to be recognized." 

“With AB 821, Assemblyman Nava told the rest of the world that California is not going to stand by and watch this glorious bird fade into extinction,” said Glenn Olson, Executive Director of Audubon California. “Through his advocacy of this important protection, he raised awareness of the Condor’s plight to new levels and returned California to the forefront of the conservation movement.”

The California Governor signed AB 821, the Ridley-Tree Condor Preservation Act, in October after a hard fought battle through the legislature.  It will remove the number one threat to the survival of the endangered California condor, lead ammunition, by having hunters switch to widely available, non lead ammunition when they hunt big game and coyote in condor country. 

The condor once covered the continent, and the California condor flew over woolly mammoths and saber toothed tigers, until their number one predator, man, brought them to the brink of extinction. 

In 1987 the last remaining 22 wild California condors on earth were captured and placed in protective custody.  Over the years, the population has incrementally increased, bird by bird, until 1992, when condors were reintroduced to the wild to face their biggest threat, lead ammunition. The scientific evidence that lead from bullets left in carcasses has caused and continues to cause the deaths of California condors is incontrovertible.

The condor is a scavenger and eats carcasses left by hunters, but it also accidentally ingests fragments of lead ammunition that stay in the animal remains.  If not captured, tested, and treated for lead poisoning, the California condor would have less than the 80 flying wild in California today.