By Dani Dodge

After nearly 70 years, the California condor is back on exhibit at the San Diego Zoo. At first glance, though, there couldn’t be an uglier bird.

A bald pink head, black beady eyes and fierce hooked beak poke out from a bustling bunch of black feathers. Younger birds with black heads are almost as homely.

The California condor lays claim to its tough, prehistoric looks honestly. It not only made it through the Pleistocene era 12,000 years ago – a time depicted in the San Diego Zoo’s new Elephant Odyssey exhibit. More recently, it survived near extinction with help from the Zoo and the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park.

So, when the California condor does that awkward hopping around its enclosure before spreading its wings into flight, it’s hard for me not to be awed. And when it eats, pulling at shreds of meat that had been tucked into a prehistoric skull, it’s weird, but amazing.

Three condors live in a 140-foot-long enclosure in Elephant Odyssey, a 7.5-acre exhibit that opened last month. Admittedly, the biggest draw at Elephant Odyssey is the herd of big gray beasts, descendants of the Columbian mammoth. Who doesn’t love elephants? But the exhibit also highlights other descendants of animals that lived in Southern California 12,000 years ago.

“From the beginning of the development of Elephant Odyssey, we were thinking of the condors – not only was it one of the survivors at that time, but at the same time it is one of our best conservation stories,” said Dave Rimlinger, the zoo’s curator of birds.

The condor enclosure features rock outcroppings and a snag where the birds perch. The strange-looking creatures fascinate people. When the birds eat, crowds gather around three and four deep. When people learn about the birds’ survival story, many voices lower in respect and wonder.

“The enclosure is phenomenal,” said Katie Laroe, a San Diego college student who recently visited the zoo. “I love to see them hop and fly – it’s just like you see on National Geographic.”

In 1982, the California condor was almost gone. Poaching, lead poisoning and an expanding human population left less than two dozen of the birds alive. Some thought their mugs would be relegated to the pictures in books. Instead, those few remaining condors were rounded up and brought into breeding programs at the Los Angeles Zoo and the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park. There are now 358 California condors. More than half of those fly free over California, Arizona and Baja California, Mexico.

The California condors are one of the last animals people see in Elephant Odyssey – a positive note at the end of the journey. These birds prove conservation can work. There is hope for turning around the damage humans have done to the Earth.

Since I came to work at the San Diego Zoo six months ago, I’ve also learned one other important thing from the California condor. Beauty is more than feather deep. I can’t imagine a more stunning animal.

Dani Dodge is a former newspaper reporter and editor now working at the San Diego Zoo. She can be reached at [email protected]. Call the San Diego Zoo at (619) 231-1515.