Harry Harris
Investigates
California Condors
From
100+ Years Ago

The present writer has not escaped the general enthusiasm aroused by these and other current efforts on behalf of Gymnogyps and has been impelled thereby to review an unfinished bibliography of the species for the purpose of compiling a more or less continuous record of civilized man’s relations with this bird. Such an account, like the complete life history of the bird itself, has never been brought together in one place, and in the hope that it may in some small measure assist in sustaining the interest already centered around the species, as well as in emphasizing the imminence of its total extirpation, the story is given here as it has been found reflected in the bibliography.

It should be stated at the outset that the ethnozoologic phase of the story, including a proper treatment of the cosmogonic significance of the bird to aboriginal man, is too involved and speculative a field for any but a trained and experienced specialist to deal with authoritatively, and it will, perforce, be but briefly adverted to.

Who, or on what voyage, may have been the first European to lay eyes on the giant vulture must forever remain unknown. The fragmentary documents that have come down to us from the sixteenth century explorers, known to have been first to enter the range of the species, contain no mention of a gigantic bird, though there is an early vague reference to griffins. The serious business of fighting scurvy and the constant fear of sudden death from shipwreck or at the hands of unknown savages precluded the notice of a mere vulture, even one of astounding size. However, it cannot be presumed that Drake, Cabrillo, Carmenho, and the others before 1600 failed entirely to see the bird.

The record begins with the published diary of a barefoot Carmelite friar, Fr. Antonio de la Ascension, who in 1602, from the tossing deck of a tiny Spanish ship, observed a California beach the stranded carcass of a huge whale (conceivably and probably) surrounded by a cloud of ravenous condors. Here indeed is material with which to stir the most dormant imagination; civilized man for the first time beholding the greatest volant bird recorded in human history, and not merely an isolated individual or two, but an immense swarm rending at their food, shuffling about in crowds for a place at the gorge, fighting and slapping with their great wings at their fellows, pushing, tugging at red meat, silently making a great commotion, and in the end stalking drunkenly to a distance with crop too heavy to carry aloft, leaving space for others of the circling throng to descend to the feast!

Such a scene has been recorded on a lessers calei n at least one section of the Pemberton film, which shows fourteen individuals devouring a coyote-killed sheep; the writer can vouch for the not entirely peaceful nature of the gathering. Two great old fellows had evidently selected the same spot for a landing and there had been a slight collision. They began immediately to box, dancing heavily and clumsily about, slapping at each other with upraised wings, the red of their wrinkled heads seemingly intensified in anger,a nd for the moment they were too engrossedin personald ifferencesto have at the sheep, while the rest of the crowd with the utmost dispatch was filling up on mutton.

Fr. Ascension was acting as journalist, cosmographer, and spiritual advisor aboard the Santo Tomas, second of the three small ships in the fleet of Sebastian Vizcaino who had been ordered by the Viceroy of New Spain to explore the coast of the Californias. The fleet had left Acapulco May 5, 1602, and had entered the Puerto de Monterey on December 16, 1602. At this point in his account Fr. Ascension goes to some length in enumerating the animal life of the region, and states (see fig. 2) : “There are some other birds of the shape of turkeys, the largest I saw on this voyage. From the point of one wing to that of the other it was found to measure seventeen spans.” A few lines further on in speaking of the local occurrence of whales, he says: “One very large one recently dead had gone ashore on the coast in this port [Monterey Bay] and the bears came by night to dine on it.” Thus was the stage set for the discovery of Gymnogyps by white men, with the opportunity at hand easily to secure a specimen for measuring.

Ascension’s natural history notes have in the main been found to be accurate, especially when recounting his own observations, and when he states that the wing spread was found to measure seventeen spans, it is permissible to visualize him spanning off a line between two marks in the sand (comfortably up wind from the whale), and noting this excessively large figure for entry in his journal. A span has always been reckoned as eight inches, thus making the friar’s measured spread eleven feet four inches, which is concidered excessive for even an old bird. Unlike the later pioneers with whom fourteen feet seems to have been the favorite minimium, Ascension merely used too strong an arm in extending the wings or perhaps too small a span in measuring them.

The Ascension diary of this important voyage was not long in being made known to the world. Since its inclusion by the Franciscan scholar Torquemada in his monumental history, usually cited briefly as the “Monarchia Indiana” and published first at, Seville in 16 15, it has been reprinted innumerable times in many languages. One of the best known of these is Venegas’, now known to be Burriel’s, “Noticia de la California . . . Madrid, 1757,” and the English translation, “A natural and civil history of California . . . London, 1759.” Torquemada’s first edition is especially important in the present connection as being the first printed book to mention the California Condor, but being one of the greatest rarities of early Americana it is almost impossible of access. One of the few copies known is owned by Pomona Colleges Library, Claremont, California, and it was from this copy that the photograph (fig. 3) of the title page shown here was made by the late Wright M. Pierce. The Huntington Library copy is of the second edition, Madrid, 1793, and is itself an excessively rare book.

Why would a birder, named Harry Harris, born and raised in Missouri during the late 19th Century, and a resident of Kansas City into the early 20th Century, come to visit Catalina Island in 1919? Why would this birder, just a few years later around 1925, up and move from Missouri to California?

Why would this birder write histories and biographies of Mr. Ridgway, John Xantus, Donald Dickey, Allan Brooks, and the California Condor? This birder, also describes himself as a bibliophile and biographer of American Ornithology. An obituary in the Auk also described him this way.

Why did Harry Harris also have an interest in bird art, namely paintings by Audubon, Ridgway, and Brooks?

We also know that he wrote a significant book on the birds of the Kansas City region in 1919. Perhaps the first trip to California in 1919, where he stayed on Catalina Island for nearly three weeks was simply a way of treating himself to a vacation, where he could also do birding? Perhaps he wanted to see a Condor, which was becoming rarer during the early 20th Century. Of course, he would not see a Condor on Catalina, but he was in southern California, so he could have traveled to the mountains to see the largest bird of the world.

We also know that in approximately 6 years, around 1925, he would forever move away from Missouri and Kansas City, to become a lifelong resident of California. Harry Harris came to reside in Los Angeles County, at Eagle Rock, and he would become active with the birders of southern California and northern California. He would become president of the southern California chapter of the Cooper Ornithological Club, as well as write several articles on birders and ornithologists of western North America. He would soon be writing a chronicle of the California Condor, which today, is still considered an important historical contribution and is quoted regularly by scientists, naturalists, and environmentalists, who are championing the return of the California Condor to the wilds of California.

The excerpts of the biography on Xantus are presented to the those interested in birds and birding history in western North America, from the midwest, to California, to Baja, Mexico.