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The reason it took so long to delist is that the Feds didn’t want to waste taxpayer dollars on a publicity stunt. But at some point in 2007, the administration (GWB, with Dirk Kempthorn as Secretary of the Interior) decided it needed to be done. So they did.
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I am pretty sure that the ESA mandates that a listed species which has achieved recovery goals must be de-listed. So the delisting of the recovered bald eagle was an action required by the Act rather than a publicity stunt.
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