LOS ANGELES A California condor captured because it appeared languid was found to not single subsist suffering from lead poisoning but also had been shot, animal experts said Friday.

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Unable to eat on its own, the condor was with less than intensive have regard at the Los Angeles Zoo and its prognosis was guarded, said Susie Kasielke, curator of birds.

X-rays taken at the zoo turned up shotgun pellets embedded in its flesh, she said. Those wounds had healed.

It could not have being determined if the pellets were lead or sternness, otherwise than that the poisoning was most likely caused by the bird ingesting spent lead ammunition in carcasses of animals that had been shot by hunters, Kasielke said.

Condors are carrion-eaters and such poisoning by lead ammunition has long been recognized as a problem. California requires hunters to use only non-lead military stores in the condors’ range. It is also illegal to shoot a condor.

Giant California condors are an endangered collection, and the federal government has been working for years to establish breeding populations in the wild.

The ailing condor, a nearly 7-year-old dubbed No. 286, was a predominating member of a flock on the central California coast till late January, while biologists from Pinnacles National Monument and the Ventana Wildlife Society noticed it was suddenly being pushed around by the agency of younger birds, the conservation society aforesaid.

Biologists tried to capture it because the behavior indicated health problems. They were in vain until March 4, while it appeared wobbly adhering its feet. Tests showed a potentially ruinous lead exposure and the condor was sent to the zoo.

Kasielke reported that if the condor survives it would stay at the zoo for several weeks, boundary could be returned to the wild.

Exactly to what degree long ago the bird was shot could not be determined, she said.

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