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Bald eagle flying off endangered list

By WASHINGTON POST
Published December 27, 2006

MINNEAPOLIS - Seven years after the U.S. government moved to take the bald eagle off the endangered species list, the Bush administration intends to complete the step by February, prodded by a frustrated libertarian property owner in Minnesota.

The delisting, supported by mainstream environmental groups, would represent a formal declaration that the eagle population has sufficiently rebounded, increasing more than 15-fold since its 1963 nadir to more than 7,000 nesting pairs.

The next challenge is to ensure the national symbol's ongoing protection.

"By Feb. 16, the bald eagle will be delisted," said Marshall Jones, deputy director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We'll be clear so people won't think, 'It's open season on bald eagles.' No way."

Although the majestic raptor will no longer be covered by the Endangered Species Act, two earlier laws and a few carefully written phrases are expected to balance respect for the eagle with an appreciation for property rights.

"It's not as though we're pulling away the Endangered Species Act and you have nothing else," said John Kostyak, senior counsel at the National Wildlife Federation, which supports the delisting.

Kostyak called the eagle's recovery "an amazing success story" but said if the species unexpectedly declines, the bird can be added to the list anew.

It was a bald eagle's nest that undid Edmund Contoski. And it was Contoski who filed a federal lawsuit that prompted U.S. District Judge John Tunheim to set the February deadline for the government to act or explain why not.

Contoski's problem, as he saw it, was the nest high in a pine on his property alongside Sullivan Lake, about 100 miles northwest of the Twin Cities. When the nest was reported to state environmental authorities, he was a few weeks away from carving out a road and several lots, hoping to make good on a family investment.

No eagles were using the nest that year - they returned later - but the discovery meant that no one could build within 330 feet. The land was suddenly useless for development, and Contoski was steamed.

He tracked down the Pacific Legal Foundation, which has a record of challenging endangered species rules. Contoski filed the lawsuit in 2005 and won in August.

A key issue was why the government had not acted. After all, it was a dramatic moment in July 1999 when President Bill Clinton stood beside a bald eagle at a White House ceremony and hailed "the rebirth of our proudest living symbol."

But the Clinton administration left office without taking action. The Bush administration promised to move on it, but those efforts also lagged.

[Last modified December 27, 2006, 00:42:10]