THE AUDUBON BuO ET IN 33 
struction of wilderness and landscape. The federal tax we pay on auto 
pplies and gasoline goes directly into the Highway Trust Fund. Money 
this fund can only be used on highways. The problem comes when every 
ar billions of dollars are generated solely for highways and nothing else. 
Today, many commentaries and analyses are being made about the 
yuble America is in. Theories place the blame on many things. Mowbray 
9ks directly at the auto and highways. These autos and highways touch 
ery citizen and the touch is becoming heavier and heavier. 
—John J. Duerr 
MAN AND THE CALIFORNIA CONDOR. By Ian McMillian. 
E. P. Dutton & Co., New York, 1968. 191 pages. $5.95. 
is book should jolt the complacency of conservationists who think that 
len a bird sanctuary or wildlife refuge is once established, from that 
1€ on everything is going to be just dandy. 
Ian McMillan details serious shortcomings in the management of Cali- 
nia’s Sespe and Sisquoc sanctuaries set apart in the Los Pedros National 
rest for protection of the endangered condor. A condor warden appointed 
the State Fish and Game Commission not only had no ornithological 
ication but, says the author, was so lacking in knowledge that he once 
d a group of visitors he was guiding that an adult turkey vulture was 
immature condor. 
The Forest Service in one instance bulldozed chapparral inside one of 
‘refuges to make a road perilously close to condor nesting areas. 
4 serious and much- publicized situation was precipitated in the 1950s 
en the state supervising agency issued a permit to a city zoo to LEAD 
air of condors. Fortunately conservationists influenced the California 
islature to cancel the permit before even one of the rare birds could 
ensnared. 
The author is not an ornithologist; instead he is a concerned citizen 
0 Owns a ranch near the condor range, but observations through many 
is have made him probably the best informed non-scientist in the pre- 
tory, history, habits and outlook of our condor population. 
The condors, he declares, “are in all ways demonstrating almost miracu- 
S capacity for survival.” He details odds against them so great that one 
nders how any of them can still be alive: ruthless slaughter in prehistoric 
‘Ss for food and in later times for target-practice; depredations of egg 
lectors in the early years of this century when one condor egg actually 
1 for $300; encroachments on their range by farming, road building, 
jected dams (not yet built), “recreation areas,” real estate subdivisions 
| other man-engineered developments, and inept management of their 
ager refuges. That they have succeeded so well for so long is due 
sely to the resourcefulness and tenacity of the birds themselves. 
The sanctuary supervision has not been all bad, McMillan admits, 
ing: “Despite the discrepancies in its management, the Sespe Sanctuary 
> largest) has not been inneffective. From my observations I would say 
t at the time of our survey (1963-64) every living condor owed its sur- 
al in one way or another to the workings of this remarkable conserva- 
| project. The problem of saving the condor is now mainly giving it the 
tection it was supposed to be receiving.” 
