Wildlife Management

All of God's creatures are welcome in the Chapel of Faith, the nondenominational house of worship on the Navy base here. Yet the bunch of Mexican free-tailed bats that hang from the rafters are testing the patience of those sworn to be the most understanding in the kingdom of God. With the flip of a light switch, they fly helter-skelter around the A-frame building. They bring shrieks from the choir, as the most squeamish fear that an erratic flight pattern is really a divebombing run.

Declaring the start of a new era in environmental cooperation, the Orange County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved what many are calling a landmark plan intended to bolster the health of both the county's economy and its rare plants and animals.

The plan approved Tuesday carves out a 37,378-acre preserve in central and coastal Orange County in a pioneering effort to protect rare plants and animals while allowing development outside the preserve's boundaries. \o7 Sources: Natural Community Conservation Planning program, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, California Department of Fish and Game \f7

Never in a million years did Robert Mesta expect the good people of Grand Canyon country to greet his beloved California condors with such contempt. But there it is, on top of a stack of like-minded public comments sitting in his Ventura office, the honest opinion of Orderville, Utah, residents Janice and Larry Esplin. "The condor is not a majestic bird but a common buzzard which lives on road kill," the Esplins wrote.

The California gnatcatcher would seem an unlikely candidate for the role of peacemaker. After all, this is the same infamous songbird that transformed Orange County into a major battlefield of the endangered species wars. Only five years ago, the once-innocuous gray-blue bird seemed destined to become Southern California's answer to the spotted owl of the Pacific Northwest, pitting developers against conservationists in an ugly test of wills.

The California gnatcatcher would seem an unlikely candidate for the role of peacemaker. After all, this is the same infamous songbird that transformed Orange County into a major battlefield of the endangered species wars. Only five years ago, the once-innocuous gray-blue bird seemed destined to become Southern California's answer to the spotted owl of the Pacific Northwest, pitting developers against conservationists in an ugly test of wills.

For the first time in 72 years, the largest and rarest bird in North America took flight over northern Arizona's cliffs and canyons in an effort by scientists to bring California condors back from the brink. A biologist atop the 1,000-foot cliffs opened a pen on a rocky ledge where six young condors have lived since Oct. 29. The fledglings walked out a few minutes apart to the cheers of 500 bird watchers below. Ten minutes later, one condor flapped awkwardly to a ledge 50 yards away.

The weathered swath of marshland is severed from the ocean and riddled with pipelines and oil wells. For those driving by, the pelicans and snowy egrets are overshadowed by towering oil pumps. Hardly the stuff of picture postcards. But to those fighting to save it, Bolsa Chica is a diamond in the rough, a potential Yosemite of wetlands.

More than 11,000 years ago, the land above the red rock canyons of northern Arizona was damp and cool. Grazing herds lived atop the verdant plain, galloping in panic from the saber-toothed tigers. And above this American Serengeti, the condor drifted silently, awaiting the remains left by sated carnivores. There were mammoths and horses, camels and llamas, two kinds of ground sloths, shrub oxen and bison. In pursuit, there were dire wolves, short-faced bears and the saber-toothed cats.

The Wildlife Waystation will hold an "At Home" celebration for the "Prudential Ducks," the popular former denizens of the insurance company's Woodland Hills headquarters who were displaced in May to make way for a parking lot. From 3 to 8 p.m. Sunday, the Wildlife Waystation invites the public to become reacquainted with the 100 or so ducks and geese while it shows off their new compound, funded by Prudential Health Care.