The American bald eagle — the national symbol whose decline helped spur the Endangered Species Act and a ban on the pesticide DDT — will be off the threatened species list this year, a top Bush administration official said Saturday.

Craig Manson, the administration's point man on the Endangered Species Act, said it's time to concentrate recovery efforts on more needy species.

‘‘It's no longer endangered, but it's still deserving of special protection,'' Manson said in an interview.

The birds still would be safeguarded under the federal Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940, which prohibits killing or selling the animals.

Once common across North America, the bald eagle was reduced to just 417 known breeding pairs in the continental United States by 1963. Its habitat was being destroyed as the nation grew, and widespread DDT use after World War II thinned eggshells, causing a crash in birth rates.

Today there are more than 7,678 breeding pairs of bald eagles in the contiguous United States, leading the group Environmental Defense to call on President Bush this week to ‘‘make history'' by removing the bird from the federal list.

The delisting process began 4½ years ago, but is taking far longer than the typical year. Drafting a five-year, post-recovery plan for such a huge range requires updated counts in each state, and eagle-protection rules already in place in some states have made the bureaucratic process more difficult.