ON THE WINGS OF SUCCESS

Federal wildlife officials this week proposed removing bald eagles from the endangered species list. The rebuilding of the country’s bald eagle population shows that the Endangered Species Act works, albeit slowly. More important, the eagle de-listing highlights the need for habitat protection to help species recover.

With more than 7,000 bald eagle pairs documented in the United States, outside Alaska, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released its plans for removing the birds from the en-dangered species list. The birds will remain protected under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

The near extinction of the birds spurred Congress to pass the Endangered Species Act in 1973. At that time, there were only 417 nesting pairs outside Alaska and only 21 in Maine. There are now 385 nesting pairs in Maine.

Although the birds were protected under federal law as early as 1940, it was not until the pesticide DDT, which caused eagle eggs to have thin shells which were crushed when adults sat on them during incubation, was banned and eagle habitat protected, that the population began to grow.

A bill that was passed by the House last year would weaken both protections. It would remove a provision from the law requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to consult with wildlife agencies before approving a pesticide for use.

Worse, the bill, sponsored by California Republican Richard Pombo, would eliminate the critical habitat requirement. The eagle experience shows that simply outlawing the killing of an endangered animal is not enough to rebuild its population; the animals need a place to live and breed.

Rep. Pombo argues that the Endangered Species Act hinders development. This has not been the case in Maine or nationally. The federal government cannot use the act to tell private landowners what they can do on their property, unless they are undertaking a project that requires a federal permit or uses federal money.

Since 1990, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has reviewed more than 1,100 projects in Maine. In only eight cases, a “formal consultation” was warranted in which federal agencies got together to discuss ways to avoid harming a species. In each of these cases, the service found that work could be done without harming the species in question, usually bald eagles, and the projects were allowed to proceed.

Nationally, out of 186,000 projects that the service reviewed, only 600 required changes because of endangered species concerns. Only 100 projects were stopped, with some of them re-started after endangered species problems were addressed.

The Endangered Species Act is far from perfect, but abandoning interagency consultations and eliminating habitat protections will not improve it.