BANGOR (AP) – Maine may follow the lead of the federal government and remove the bald eagle from its list of threatened species.

State wildlife officials will hold a hearing on that proposal Thursday in Bangor. It comes up as bald eagles continue their strong recovery in Maine, home of the largest bald eagle population on the East Coast north of Chesapeake Bay.

Maine had 21 nesting pairs in the late 1960s, but has 470 now. Federal officials dropped eagles from their threatened species list last year after the number of nesting pairs in the lower 48 states topped 10,000.

Removing eagles from the list will ease some restrictions for landowners, but keep in place protections under federal laws.