PHOENIX - Some Arizona tribal leaders are threatening to file lawsuits over the plan by federal wildlife authorities to delist bald eagles as endangered species.
The bald eagle is sacred to many Native Americans, and 20 percent of the animals' 50 breeding areas in Arizona are on Indian land.
The Southwest regional director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service invited 13 Arizona tribes to a hearing Wednesday in Glendale after the tribes claimed they hadn't been consulted on the delisting issue.
Fish and Wildlife officials first proposed the eagle delisting process in 1999.
Arizona's bald eagle population is 43 breeding pairs.
The Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity and Maricopa Audubon have sued the government.
They claim Arizona's eagles are an endangered population segment apart from the 20,000 eagles in the rest of the country that appear to have recovered after being decimated by pesticides in the 1950s.
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