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At extinction's door four decades ago, the American bald eagle is on the verge of completing a comeback for the ages.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has confirmed that it likely will soon remove the national symbol from the federal list of endangered and threatened species, perhaps as early as next year.

The agency is complying with a court order that requires it to make a final decision on the bald eagle's status no later than Feb. 16.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has embarked on what is expected to be a final round of public comment to complete a delisting process that dates back to 1999.

The proposal has support that includes environmental groups such as Environmental Defense and the National Wildlife Federation. Agency officials — who made their initial recommendation to delist last February — now consider it only a matter of time before the bald eagle is officially deemed to be recovered.

"It's an amazing story," Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Valerie Fellows said. "It has come out in little nuggets over the last seven years. But this stands as a great success story for conservation."

The bald eagle's prospects in the United States reached their lowest point in 1963, when only 400 nesting or reproducing pairs could be found in the lower 48 states.

Today there are more than 7,000 nesting pairs, with the species now found in every state but Vermont and Hawaii.

When the bald eagle became the nation's symbol in 1782, it was thriving, with a population in excess of 100,000.

But hunting, lead poisoning from waterfowl hit by buckshot and toxic chemicals — most prominently DDT — took their toll.

Congress created the Bald Eagle Protection Act in 1940. The bird was placed on the endangered species list 27 years later, following passage of the Endangered Species Act.

The bald eagle's recovery did not begin in earnest until DDT was banned in 1972. A steady population climb led to downgrading the species from "endangered" to "threatened" in 1995.

Today's numbers have reached the point where extinction is no longer a concern.

Fellows acknowledges con-cerns about delisting. It will mean that many mandatory federal regulations — such as buffer areas for nests and habitats — will become voluntary. Dollars for bald eagle conservation programs may also be tougher to come by.