A condor is one of the world's largest flying birds, with wings that can stretch up to ten feet from tip to tip. Picture a bird so enormous that when it soars overhead, its shadow might cover your entire backyard. Condors are vultures, which means they feed on dead animals rather than hunting live prey. They can glide for hours without flapping their wings, riding warm air currents high in the sky while scanning the ground below for food.

Only two species of condor exist today: the California condor in North America and the Andean condor in South America. Both were named after the Quechua word kuntur. The California condor nearly went extinct in the 1980s, with fewer than 30 birds remaining in the wild. Scientists captured the last wild condors and carefully bred them in captivity, then released their offspring back into nature. Today, through enormous conservation efforts, over 500 California condors exist, though they remain critically endangered.

Condors can live for 50 years or more and don't start having babies until they're six or seven years old. They mate for life and raise just one chick every other year, which makes rebuilding their population a slow process. When you hear about conservation success stories, the California condor represents one of the most dramatic rescues of a species from the brink of extinction.