Bald eagle denied special status

TUCSON, Ariz. — Arizona's bald eagle population will not be reclassified as endangered, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has decided.

The agency concluded that conservationists failed to show the Arizona population was significant to the species as a whole or that it is at risk of extinction.

Environmentalists had petitioned the agency to upgrade the classification of Arizona bald eagles from threatened to endangered, saying they are isolated physically, geographically, behaviorally and physiologically from other bald eagles.

"We'll sue," said Dr. Robin Silver, board chair for the Center for Biological Diversity. "We will argue that our desert nesting bald eagles have value, that they're significant and they're important. They're worth saving."

The center, the Maricopa Audubon Society and the Arizona Audubon Council petitioned Fish and Wildlife in October 2004, then sued it in March of this year after the service failed to review, evaluate and respond within 90 days as required by federal law.

"The outcome of the suit was that we did complete a review and evaluation of their petition," said Jeff Humphrey, a Fish and Wildlife spokesman in Phoenix, "and that evaluation found that the Sonoran Desert bald eagle doesn't warrant listing as endangered."

In fact, the agency has proposed delisting the bird nationwide "because of recovery success," Humphrey said. That decision could come in February.

Delisting would still leave the bald eagle protected under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, Humphrey said. But that act does not provide for habitat protection.

Humphrey said Fish and Wildlife officials agreed with the petitioners that the bald eagle in the Southwest is separate and distinct. They disagreed, however, that its population represented a significant, genetically distinct portion of the overall bald eagle population or a unique ecological niche.

In addition, "the level of threats described in the petition, as well as information available from the Arizona Game and Fish Department, doesn't indicate that the Sonoran Desert bald eagle population is at risk of extinction," said Steve Spangle, Fish and Wildlife's Arizona field supervisor.

Humphrey said the latest population survey of Arizona bald eagles earlier this year found 50 breeding areas, most of them occupied, and a total of 166 birds.