SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The bald eagle, America’s signature bird, is likely to be removed from the endangered species list this year after one of the most successful conservation efforts in history.

A ruling on the eagle’s status had been expected for Feb. 16, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last week won court approval to spend another four months deciding whether to remove the bald eagle from the list. The U.S. District Court in Minneapolis extended the deadline to June 29.

The delisting itself isn’t the result of direct action by environmentalists. The eagle is about to leave the federal nest because of a lawsuit by the conservative, Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit law firm that has waged war against environmental regulation.

Its chief target over the past three decades has been the federal Endangered Species Act, the legal framework that saved the bald eagle.

“The Endangered Species Act is a statute which has tremendously long and sharp teeth,” said the group’s president, Rob Rivett, a graduate of the University of California, Davis and McGeorge School of Law. “We haven’t been striving to delist the bald eagle. We’ve been striving to make sure the Endangered Species Act is enforced correctly and is not misused.”

The eagle with the piercing stare has symbolized America and freedom itself in almost every imaginable way, from government seals and postage stamps to pickup truck advertising and the National Rifle Association logo.

Now the bald eagle, once considered a pest that was thought to harass livestock, also will stand as a symbol of the American conservation ethic.

“The eagle is a powerful example that the recovery of once-endangered species is within our means,” said Michael Bean, who chairs the wildlife program at Environmental Defense.

“The lesson in the eagle is if we want to recover other endangered species, we have to make a similar commitment that is sustained, well-funded and engages lots of different parties,” he said. “And that hasn’t been the case for many other listed species thus far.”

The bald eagle was declared an endangered species in 1967, under the Endangered Species Preservation Act, precursor to today’s law. It was among the first imperiled species to attain this dubious honor.

Over the years the eagle’s protected status dragged on, even as its population surged.

Former President Clinton first promised to delist it in 1999, with a bald eagle at his side during a White House ceremony.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service never followed through, claiming the bird’s wide-ranging nature and diverse habitats complicated planning for the status change.

So the Pacific Legal Foundation agreed to represent Edmund Contoski, a Minnesota property owner who claims he was prevented from subdividing a lakefront parcel because bald eagles nested in the trees.

The foundation sued in 2005, hoping to force delisting.

“As of 1999, at least, the government had concluded the eagle had been recovered,” said Damien Schiff, the foundation attorney handling the eagle case. “Yet our client and many others like him throughout the country had to labor under these restrictions, unnecessarily, for seven years.”

In August 2006, a federal judge agreed with Schiff and Contoski, ordering the government to rule on the eagle’s status by Feb. 16. This week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service won court approval to spend another four months deciding whether to remove the bald eagle from the endangered species list. The U.S. District Court in Minneapolis extended the deadline to June 29.

The eagle’s numbers for 2006, still estimates, indicate there are 9,350 breeding pairs in the lower 48 states, a dramatic improvement from about 417 in 1963.

According to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, the eagle population in Maine was fewer than 30 pairs in the 1970s. Eagle recovery proved successful in Maine, and by 2005, the state had more than 370 nesting pairs.

But don’t count on a truce. Battles already are brewing over how the eagle should be managed after delisting.

The birds will remain protected by the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. The 1940 law was passed to control overhunting of eagles, long before DDT came on the scene. The law made it illegal to “disturb” a bald eagle, but how that word is defined in the wake of delisting carries huge significance.

Also, some environmental groups want the Southwest population of the bald eagle, mostly in Arizona, to remain protected by the Endangered Species Act as a distinct population.

“The government does a lousy quality-control job of fulfilling its obligations,” said Bill Curtiss, deputy director of Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm that is Pacific Legal Foundation’s ideological opposite. “That is a fact that we and PLF agree on.”

The foundation has had many victories, including delisting the Oregon coast coho salmon, in 2004, and the proposed delisting of the valley elderberry longhorn beetle, the bane of Central Valley developers and levee builders.

“There are an awful lot of [protected] species out there that shouldn’t be on the books anymore,” said Rivett, who has been with the foundation since 1975. “If you have a species that’s been recovered, you should take that next step and take it off the list.”

Curtiss said Rivett’s group is really out to dismantle and undermine the Endangered Species Act and has served as a “cloak” for the home building industry.

“In the bald eagle case, they represent a guy who’s a subdivider,” Curtiss said. “The protection of real estate developers’ profits is served by an agenda that defeats regulation and delays regulation and avoids regulation wherever possible. PLF is to blame for that.”

PLF has never made a secret of its political stripes or its financial backing. In 2004, its board of trustees included officials from Pardee Homes, Lusardi Construction, Wells Fargo Bank, Harris Farms, and T.R. Hall Land & Cattle Co.