Your Representative From California Would Like To Beak Up

  For those of you who don't read 536457652 newspapers today, check this out:

  A naturally pair-bonded Condor couple welcomed the first of hopefully a few little ones into the fold. For the first time since great-granny's time, a chick was born alive at Pinnacles National Monument Park. The pair had lost their first wee one and hatched an egg for a captive pair. These birds mate for life and have adopted their new one as any produced via their own DNA. Barring poaching, this new one will soar on his own in about a year under the close eye of mum and pop.

  This is an example of how we can enable a hardy animal a new opportunity at life. Poachers have reduced this magnificent beast to a few, but with a hand up their numbers have increased and they have managed to avoid extinction. They are a living dionasaur that can again soar like no other avian creature of our modern era. They can travel at speeds only found on highways and at heights acheived by passenger aircraft. The Condor is a scavenging vulture yet gentle enough that people of the past kept them as pets. This is an almost mythical creature and one I am glad we have preserved.
  This magnificent specimen of traits led to their being revered . The creature of luck was placed in graves of Aboriginals and feared by the white man. Native tribes killed them for their valuable corpses and ranchers because they feared curses or myths of pack predation. We have nearly destroyed the only ancestor we have that can survive inbreeding, glacial eras, and organized religion whilst gracefully going about a very social way of life. They have espoused and inspired many of the ideals we hold true and used to outlive us. They were human before we were and I am thrilled that we have given them the opportunity to teach us while they live and love and clean up carcasses.

We CAN own and atone. The Condor is more than happy to forgive us and we should be so lucky.