After an extensive review by a team of wildlife officials, land managers and condor biologists, the continuation of the condor program in Arizona and southern Utah has been approved.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the condor program aims to decrease the threat of lead exposure by trapping, testing and treating wild condors every year. So far, the program has helped reduce the overall mortality rate of condors from 40 percent in 1996 to about 26 percent in 2006.

However, although field biologists have managed to reduce the number of condor deaths through rigorous monitoring and treatment, these efforts are highly invasive, labor intensive and costly. In addition, the long-term effects of lead exposure in condors are unknown. Therefore, it is unlikely that the northern Arizona and southern Utah condor program will succeed at achieving a self-sustaining condor populations with the current lead exposure situation, wildlife officials said.

The condor project began with the release of six condors at Vermilion Cliffs in Arizona in December 1996. The goal of the project is to establish two self-sustaining populations, on inside and one outside of California, each with 150 birds and at least 15 breeding pairs, the wildlife officials said.

Last year, a total of 93 condors were released to the wild, and five chicks were wild-hatched in Northern Arizona. The program has also helped produce the first confirmed condor egg laid in the wild since 1986. The egg was laid in a shallow cave in Grand Canyon National Park in 2001.

In the Southwest, condors have been observed to fly long distances, but they generally have remained in the Grand Canyon area. Recently, some members of the population have been making regular flights to the vicinity at Zion National Park, spending a portion of the year there.

The full report on the condor project is available at www.fws.gov/southwest/es/Arizona.