NEW ORLEANS -- Federal officials announced yesterday that they are removing the brown pelican from the endangered-species list, capping a century-long recovery that started under former President Theodore Roosevelt.

The brown pelican is a fixture in Southern California and along the Gulf of Mexico from Texas to Florida, where Roosevelt established the first national wildlife refuge on Pelican Island to protect it from human slaughter.

It is an icon in Louisiana, where it is the state bird, and where Interior Department officials assembled yesterday at the Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge near New Orleans to proclaim the brown pelican "fully recovered" and no longer in need of federal protection.

"In many ways, the brown pelican stands as a symbol of our nation's struggle to protect and conserve our wildlife," said Tom Strickland, assistant Interior secretary for fish, wildlife and parks. He said the bird had made "a long, long steady climb back ... from the brink of extinction."

Brown pelicans were first imperiled by hunters who prized their feathers. Later, the bird suffered heavily from the effects of the pesticide DDT, sprayed for mosquito control, which weakened pelican eggs so that they cracked prematurely.

The bird appeared poised for removal from the endangered list several years ago, but was set back by Gulf oil spills and Hurricane Katrina's habitat destruction.

The Interior Department reported that the brown pelican population has swelled to more than 650,000 throughout North and Central America, a recovery they attribute largely to a federal ban on DDT imposed in 1972.

Pelican populations in Florida and along the Atlantic Coast were removed from the endangered list in the mid-1980s. Yesterday's announcement removes the entire national population from the list.

The so-called "de-listing" means that federal agencies will no longer need to consider impacts on brown pelicans when approving development such as road-building. Federal scientists will continue to monitor population levels.

Pelican recovery "shows that the Endangered Species Act, America's strongest environmental law, actually works," said Sam Hamilton, director of the federal Fish and Wildlife Service.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said it showed the nation "that we can achieve a balance on our working coast."

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