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TUCSON, Ariz. — Seven California condors born in captivity will be released Saturday atop northern Arizona’s Vermillion Cliffs, adding to the current population of 25 in Arizona. 

However, officials nearly postponed the release because at least two previously released condors had eaten from coyotes that had been killed with lead shot. Scavengers and birds of prey, including condors, often die from lead poisoning after eating game killed with lead gunshot. 

“Since we were able to capture the birds at risk and determine through initial tests that they’re healthy, we’re confident that we can move ahead with the condor release as scheduled,” said Chris Parish, field coordinator for the Peregrine Fund. 

Biologists with the Peregrine Fund, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal and state agencies plan to release 11 new condors in all in the 10th such release since efforts to restore the birds to the wild began in 1996. 

California condors are the biggest and among the most ancient of North America’s birds. They nearly became extinct — dropping to only 22 in 1982 — before biologists launched a multimillion-dollar recovery program. As of January, there was a total California condor population of 183. 

Ten of the birds being released were born in captivity last year at the Peregrine Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey. The other was hatched in 1999 at the San Diego Zoo. 

A pair of condors among the 25 living in or near the Grand Canyon produced an egg in a cave there last year, believed to be the first in the wild since the early 1980s, but the egg did not hatch, said Jeff Cilek, a spokesman for the Boise, Idaho-based Peregrine Fund. 

Scientists are hopeful other eggs will be laid and hatched successfully this year, Cilek said. 

Condors, which are strict scavengers, do not normally reproduce until they are about six years old, he said. Typically, females produce one egg every other year. Incubation takes 56 days. 

David Harlow, Arizona field supervisor for Fish and Wildlife, called condor recovery efforts in Arizona “an overwhelming success” in terms of the surviving wild population. 

“We anxiously await the first successful breeding and egg hatching of condors in the wild since the early ’80s,” he said. 

Condors have few natural predators. But a naturally low rate of reproduction, shootings, poisoning — particularly lead poisoning — and collisions with power lines have been major contributors to the bird’s near-extinction. 

As of January, there also were 33 California condors in the wild in southern and central California, another 12 in field pens in California and 102 in captive populations in Idaho and California.