The Department of the Interior is preparing to remove the brown pelican from the national list of endangered species because the species has made an impressive recovery. The pelican was one of the first species listed under the Endangered Species Act nearly 38 years ago. The recovery of the pelican is attributable not just to species management practices but to the elimination of the root cause of the pelican's decline — DDT. From The Los Angeles Times: Pelicans suffered almost complete reproductive failure in the 1960s and early 1970s because the pesticide DDT accumulated in their bodies, weakening their eggs and killing chicks. When DDT was banned in the United States in 1972, the species started to rebound. Today, more than 70,000 breeding pairs of pelicans inhabit California and Baja California, and total numbers have surged to about 620,000 birds along the West Coast, the Gulf Coast, and in Latin and South America. In announcing the proposal, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director H. Dale Hall said the fish-eating, long-lived birds are no longer threatened with extinction, "either in the foreseeable future or in the long term." According to the article, "Hall said it's important to remove high-profile species because it shows the controversial law is working." It's refreshing to hear a Bush administration official acknowledge that regulation works.