San Diego Zoo Safari Park curator

The Pacific Southwest Region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced their three awardees of the agency’s 2010 Recovery Champion Award. Michael Mace, curator of Birds at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park is receiving an award today for his work in helping to recover the California condor and light-footed clapper rail. His efforts have made a marked difference to these bird populations. Today there are nearly 200 condors in the wild. This would not have been possible without Mace’s strong conservation actions starting more than 30 years ago. When the survival of the condors was in question, he advocated for capturing the last wild condors to start a captive-bred population with the vision of returning these birds to the wild. Image taken from USFWS Pacific Southwest Region Flickr page.