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There were only 208 condors in the
wild and captivity as of Aug. 1. 

TIJUANA, Mexico — Biologists ferried three California condors to Mexico on Monday, flying the birds by plane on the first leg of a journey to a remote mountain site where a small colony of the endangered giant birds. will be released this fall. 

The birds arrived in Tijuana aboard a private plane from Burbank, Calif., said Bruce Palmer, California condor recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 

Three more condors were to have followed on a second flight during the afternoon, but hours of paperwork delays led biologists to postpone shipping them to Mexico until Wednesday.  

From Tijuana, the three birds were to continue on by plane and truck to a remote and rugged site in the Sierra de San Pedro Martir on the northern end of the Baja California peninsula. 

When the other three birds join them, the six will remain in a mountaintop pen for several weeks. 

Once acclimated, five of the condors, all juveniles, will be released to fly over what was once the southernmost extension of a range that stretched from Mexico to Canada. Condors have been absent from Mexico for at least 50 years. 

“To have a place that is reasonably isolated and protected from people, this is important for the birds to develop,” Palmer said. 

All six birds were hatched and raised in captivity; the adult female, however, spent two years flying wild before biologists opted to recapture her because she was straying too close to power lines, which have killed other condors. 

In the 1980s biologists began an aggressive program to capture the last of the free-flying condors and breed them in captivity. From a low of 22 birds, there were 208 condors in the wild and captivity as of Aug. 1. 

As the population grew, biologists began returning the birds to the wild in 1992, releasing them in California and Arizona. The Mexico release will mark the international expansion of program. Eventually, another 20 or so condors could be released at the site in Baja California. 

The goal of the $40 million recovery program is to establish two wild populations and one captive population of condors, each with 150 birds, including a minimum of 15 breeding pairs apiece. Since condors range so far, biologists will consider the Mexican colony part of the California population, with which it is expected to mix.