Tucson, Arizona (KGUN) — Tiny little owls have played a big role in the development history of this area. The bird, which lost federal protection, is now back under protection.

The average pygmy owl is about 6 inches tall and weighs about 2.5 ounces, but environmental and development issues are a big burden here.

When Biodiversity CenterIn the late 1990s, developers gave owls federal protection, arguing that regulations had to be followed to protect birds so rare that they questioned their existence.

For environmentalists, their rarity helped highlight the need for conservation.

The homebuilder filed a lawsuit and was stripped of its protection. Now, the Center for Biodiversity has won a lawsuit seeking restoration of protection.

The center’s Noah Greenwald puts Arizona’s pygmy owl numbers in the hundreds. He said they are now gone from northwest Tucson and are definitely no longer sighted in the Organ Pipe area.

“So there has been some decline, but they still exist. They are in the Alter Valley, the Abra Valley, the Tohono Reservation, and are still found in all those places.”

But Pima County expects the impact on developers to be far less than the last time Owl was under federal protection.Since then, the county Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. It states that if a project develops natural land, an equal or larger area can remain undeveloped to preserve space for desert flora and fauna.

Sherry Luther Pima County Sustainability and ConservationIt says it is aimed at developers under the Endangered Species Act.

“And then you develop the project and grade it as you are allowed to, and the county goes elsewhere to provide mitigation.

And the county says the plan protects many other plants and animals besides pygmy owls.