By 2013 the number of condors in the wild had grown to more than 200---and another 200 animals were living in zoos---and the maintenance and reintroduction program continued to be heralded as a success. Because of the continued close monitoring of these bird populations, it is possible to definitively identify the biggest current threat to the still-recovering California condor: lead poisoning. Condors are scavengers, often eating the remains of animals left behind by careless hunters. Lead bullets shatter into fragments upon impact, and condors ingest these metal pieces with carrion. Without treatment, serious infections prove fatal.
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