Federal officials took the first step Monday to remove the endangered status of Arizona's pygmy owls, whose protection sparked a tightening of development rules and a change in environmental consciousness in Pima County. Removal of federal protection may make it easier for some developments to be built on Tucson's fast-growing Northwest Side. The old-growth saguaro and ironwood forests there are considered prime owl habitat. But it won't roll back the tide of tougher development standards that local governments have pushed through in recent years, a top Pima County official and a leading homebuilders' spokesman said. Where an owl "delisting" is...