3 Gunshots Are Fired at Condor in Forest : Wildlife: The endangered bird, part of a breeding program, is unharmed. Officials are investigating a suspect.

One of the two endangered California condors released into the rugged hills of the Los Padres National Forest in January was shot at three times over the weekend, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday.

The rifle shots missed the large vulture, which was perched on a cliff face 300 feet above a creek bed about 15 miles east of the release site, high in the hills above Fillmore.

Aside from being flushed from her perch and startled into soaring across a gorge, 15-month-old Xewe (pronounced Gay - wee ) was unharmed, said David Ledig of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He is the assistant project leader for the California condor project.

The other California condor released in January, Chocuyens ( Cho-koo-yens ), and two Andean condors also set free in the forest this year were not in the area at the time of the Sunday afternoon shooting, Ledig said.

“We’re relieved that we didn’t lose a bird,” Ledig said. “But it’s really frustrating. We had hoped that it wouldn’t come this soon.”

Because an investigation is in progress, Ledig said he could not release the exact location of the shooting except to say that it was outside the Los Padres National Forest, in an area of the Angeles National Forest in Los Angeles County.

The suspect in the shooting is a Los Angeles man who was on a family outing with a group of five to nine people, Ledig said. They are still being interviewed, he said.

The group was spotted walking along a creek bed immediately after the shots were fired, Ledig said.

He said a Fish and Wildlife Service biological technician who had been monitoring Xewe noticed one of the men in the group carrying a rifle.

No arrests or charges have been made, authorities said.

After the investigation is complete, it will be up to a federal prosecutor to decide whether to press the case, said David Klinger, a spokesman with the service’s regional office in Portland, Ore.

Killing or harming a federally endangered species is a misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of one year in jail and a $100,000 fine.

“This is evidence that we need to redouble our efforts to educate the people who are recreating in the area,” Klinger said.

Gunshots and lead ingested by the carrion-eating condors were among the factors that led to the species’ endangered status, he said.

The two California condors were raised in captivity and are the pioneers of a $15-million program that scientists hope will re-establish condors in the wild. Biologists will meet next month to decide how many more chicks to release and when.

Ledig said tentative plans call for the release of another six birds this winter.

He asked anyone who sees a shooting to report it as soon as possible to the California Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Forest Service or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.