In scanning my bibliography on the California condor, the titles of some articles just leap out from the rest. This post presents 20 curious titles from articles about condors dated 1895-1999. These articles are from newspapers, magazines, and journals.
I have no explanation for why these titles drew my attention. Perhaps readers can spot what they have in common.
Uncle Sam’s Curios (Sausalito News 11 May 1895)
He Ate Too Much of the Dead Cow (San Francisco Call 21 June 1896)
Feathered Freaks (Amador Ledger 31 May 1901)
Fight with California Condor (Sausalito News 15 March 1902)
Condor Individuality (Amador Ledger 1 May 1908)
Used Condor as Parachute (Washington Post 23 August 1908)
Twenty Condors Dine Together (Condor July 1936)
Find Wild Birds Are Better off If behind Bars (Chicago Daily Tribune 7 May 1951)
Those ‘Forty Dirty Birds’ (Audubon July-August 1966)
Tasty (Los Angeles Times 11 June 1971)
The Condor Is Not a Bird (Los Angeles Times 20 July 1972)
Caught in a Condorattack (Los Angeles Times 17 August 1976)
Third Time Lucky for Condors? (Times [London] 11 May 1982)
Condor Fuss (Los Angeles Times 21 October 1982)
What about That Third Condor Egg? (Zoonooz June 1983)
Anyone for Condor Stew? (Forbes 22 September 1986)
Condor Recovery Effort Rests on Backs of Llamas (Fish and Wildlife News Summer 1992)
The New Local Yokels (Los Angeles Times 7 October 1993)
Let Them Circle (Los Angeles Times 27 September 1994)
Clutching for Survival (UMAP Journal 1999)
Whatever the attention-grabbing “power” of these titles may be, the titles do show us something of the complicated, back-and-forth relationship between California condors and humans.
Pseudogryps 