Ventana Wildlife Society - California Condors

Mike Stake is a wildlife biologist at Ventana Wildlife Society in Monterey. A San Francisco Bay Area native, Mike became interested in birds when his 6th-grade teacher took the class to a local sewage pond to identify ducks, herons, and kingfishers. Mike left California in 1988 to attend the University of Nebraska. After graduation, he worked with The Nature Conservancy in Texas and Hawks Aloft in New Mexico before getting his Master’s Degree at the University of Missouri. Along the way, he assisted biology research projects in the Bahamas, Australia, Peru, and Ecuador, and spent two years teaching English classes in Russia. Mike has been back home in California since 2009 assisting with California Condor recovery on the central coast.