SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Wildlife officials say a recovery program aimed at restoring the California condor in much of the Southwest has been hampered by lead poisoning from hunters’ bullets.
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service says about half of the roughly 130 condors released since 1996 along the Arizona/Utah border have died or vanished.
Officials say the No. 1 cause of death for condors is poisoning from lead fragments left by bullets in animal carcasses.
Still, the birds are gaining a foothold. About 70 condors range from Arizona’s Grand Canyon to southern Utah’s Zion National Park.
