The Mathematical Demography of the California Condor Population

Abstract

This paper applies demographic methods devised by Leslie (1966) to the population biology of the California condor. The methods permit evaluation of the population's potential for growth and of its capacity to withstand exploitation. For condors, the potential for growth must always remain low unless the frequency of reproduction can be increased. Any degree of exploitation would pose a threat to the population's persistence, which must have been marginal, even in the Recent prehistoric and Pleistocene. Such life history modifications as changing developmental time or permitting renesting after a nesting failure would have a very small impact on the population biology of this species. Besides its game management implications, this paper evaluates the evolutionary potentials of large animals with low reproductive rates and examines demographic factors which contribute to the process of megafaunal extinction.