Description
The California Condor was among the first species to gain protection under the Endangered Species Act. These ancient birds once soared across the western United States and into Canada and Mexico — but by the 1970s, their numbers had crashed. By 1982, only 22 remained in the wild, victims of relentless human interference.
Condors are nature’s canary in the coal mine. As carrion feeders, they are especially vulnerable to environmental toxins, which accumulate in their food chain through bioaccumulation. The effects are devastating — poisoned birds, failed reproduction, and eggshells too fragile to sustain new life.
Captive breeding programs launched in the late 1980s gave the species a fighting chance. Today, wild condors are once again riding thermals across the American West — a testament to the difficult, high-stakes decisions made by conservation biologists determined to pull a species back from the edge.
In this lab, students take on the role of those biologists. They will determine the sex of condors and analyze disease markers for a fatal inherited condition, construct a pedigree, and develop a breeding strategy to protect the population’s future and justify the strategy. The science is real. The stakes are too!
Includes:
- Four Ready-to-Load DNA samples (2 for sexing, 2 disease markers)
- MiniOne® Marker
- Ten 2% agarose GreenGel™ GelCups
- 1 bottle of Tris-Acetate-EDTA (TAE) buffer concentrate
- One bag of 0.65 mL microcentrifuge tubes
- One bag of 2 – 200 µL micropipette tips
