Persistent organochlorine pesticide residues in tissues and eggs of white-backed vulture, Gyps bengalensis from different locations in India.

Organochlorine pesticide residues were determined in tissues of five Indian white-backed vultures and two of their eggs collected from different locations in India. All the samples had varying levels of residues. p,p'-DDE ranged between 0.

Ammunition is the principal source of lead accumulated by California condors re-introduced to the wild.

The endangered California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus) was reduced to a total population of 22 birds by the end of 1982. Their captive-bred descendants are now being released back into the wild in California, Arizona, and Baja California, where monitoring indicates they may accumulate lead to toxic levels. Fragments of ammunition in the carcasses of game animals such as deer, elk, and feral pigs not retrieved by hunters or in gut piles left in the field have been considered a plausible source of the lead, though little direct evidence is available to support this hypothesis.

Pleistocene to recent dietary shifts in California condors.

We used carbon and nitrogen isotopes to investigate changes in the diet of California condors from the Pleistocene to the recent. During the Pleistocene, condors from California fed on both terrestrial megafauna and marine mammals. Early accounts reported condors feeding on the carcasses of marine mammals, but by the late 1700s, condor diets had shifted predominantly to terrestrial animals, following the commercial harvesting of marine mammals and the development of cattle ranching on land.