Season’s Last Condor Chick Breaks Out of Shell

Shatash, the last California condor of the 1990 breeding season, broke out of its shell early Friday at the Los Angeles Zoo, bringing the number of the endangered species to 40.

Shatash, an American Indian term for condor, weighed a healthy 5.3 ounces when it emerged at 3 a.m., said Deborah Ullman Pollack, a zoo spokeswoman. “It got out of its shell all by itself and it’s eating well,” she said.

Keepers were on hand to watch the final egg of the prolific 1990 season hatch. It took longer than usual without the assistance of humans, Pollack said, but it was necessary to keep human interference to a minimum because the zoo’s objective is to eventually release the condor into the wild.