Endangered and Threatened Wildlife; 90-Day Finding on a Petition To List the Whitespotted Eagle Ray as Threatened or Endangered Under the Endangered Species Act

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Parts 223 and 224</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 240212-0044; RTID 0648-XR130]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife; 90-Day Finding on a Petition To List the Whitespotted Eagle Ray as Threatened or Endangered Under the Endangered Species Act</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notification of 90-day petition finding. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> We, NMFS, announce a 90-day finding on a petition under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to list the whitespotted eagle ray ( <E T="03">Aetobatus narinari</E> ) as a threatened or endangered species and to designate critical habitat concurrent with the listing. We find that the petition does not present substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> These findings were made on April 19, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Copies of the petition and related materials are available from the NMFS website at <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/endangered-species-conservation/negative-90-day-findings.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Adrienne Lohe, NMFS Office of Protected Resources, (301) 427-8442, <E T="03">adrienne.lohe@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On April 6, 2023, we received a petition from the Defend Them All Foundation to list the whitespotted eagle ray, <E T="03">Aetobatus narinari,</E> as a threatened or endangered species under the ESA and to designate critical habitat concurrent with the listing. The petition asserts that this species is threatened by four of the five ESA section 4(a)(1) factors: (1) present or threatened destruction, modification, or curtailment of its habitat or range; (2) overutilization for commercial and recreational purposes; (3) inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms; and (4) other natural or manmade factors. The petition requests that if the species is listed as threatened or endangered, we promulgate a regulation under section 4(e) of the ESA for species similar in appearance to the whitespotted eagle ray, and if we determine the whitespotted eagle ray warrants listing as a threatened species, we promulgate a protective regulation under section 4(d) of the ESA. The petition is available online (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ). <HD SOURCE="HD1">ESA Statutory, Regulatory, and Policy Provisions and Evaluation Framework</HD> Section 4(b)(3)(A) of the ESA of 1973, as amended (16 U.S.C. 1531 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ), requires, to the maximum extent practicable, that within 90 days of receipt of a petition to list a species as threatened or endangered, the Secretary of Commerce make a finding on whether that petition presents substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted, and to promptly publish such finding in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (16 U.S.C. 1533(b)(3)(A)). When it is found that substantial scientific or commercial information in a petition indicates the petitioned action may be warranted (a “positive 90-day finding”), we are required to promptly commence a review of the status of the species concerned during which we will conduct a comprehensive review of the best available scientific and commercial information. In such cases, we conclude the review with a finding as to whether, in fact, the petitioned action is warranted within 12 months of receipt of the petition (16 U.S.C. 1533(b)(3)(B)). Because the finding at the 12-month stage is based on a more thorough review that encompasses all the best available information, as compared to the narrow scope of review at the 90-day stage, a “may be warranted” finding does not prejudge the outcome of the status review. Under the ESA, a listing determination may address a species, which is defined to also include subspecies and any vertebrate distinct population segment (DPS) that interbreeds when mature (16 U.S.C. 1532(16)). A joint NMFS-U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) (jointly, “the Services”) policy clarifies the Services' interpretation of the phrase “distinct population segment” for the purposes of listing, delisting, and reclassifying a species under the ESA (61 FR 4722, February 7, 1996). A species, subspecies, or DPS is “endangered” if it is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range, and “threatened” if it is likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range (ESA sections 3(6) and 3(20), respectively, 16 U.S.C. 1532(6) and (20)). Pursuant to the ESA and our implementing regulations, we determine whether species are threatened or endangered based on any one or a combination of the following five ESA section 4(a)(1) factors: (1) the present or threatened destruction, modification, or curtailment of habitat or range; (2) overutilization for commercial, recreational, scientific, or educational purposes; (3) disease or predation; (4) inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms to address identified threats; or (5) any other natural or manmade factors affecting the species' existence (16 U.S.C. 1533(a)(1), 50 CFR 424.11(c)). ESA-implementing regulations issued jointly by NMFS and USFWS (50 CFR 424.14(h)(1)(i)) define “substantial scientific or commercial information” in the context of reviewing a petition to list, delist, or reclassify a species as “credible scientific or commercial information in support of the petition's claims such that a reasonable person conducting an impartial scientific review would conclude that the action proposed in the petition may be warranted.” Conclusions drawn in the petition without the support of credible scientific or commercial information will not be considered “substantial information.” In accordance with 50 CFR 424.14(h)(1)(ii), in reaching the initial (90-day) finding on the petition, we will consider the information described in subsections 50 CFR 424.14(c), (d), and (g) (if applicable). Our determination as to whether the petition provides substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted will depend in part on the degree to which the petition includes the following types of information: (1) information on current population status and trends and estimates of current population sizes and distributions, both in captivity and the wild, if available; (2) identification of the factors under section 4(a)(1) of the ESA that may affect the species and where these factors are acting upon the species; (3) whether and to what extent any or all of the factors alone or in combination identified in section 4(a)(1) of the ESA may cause the species to be an endangered species or threatened species ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> the species is currently in danger of extinction or is likely to become so within the foreseeable future), and, if so, how high in magnitude and how imminent the threats to the species and its habitat are; (4) information on adequacy of regulatory protections and effectiveness of conservation activities by states as well as other parties, that have been initiated or that are ongoing, that may protect the species or its habitat; and (5) a complete, balanced representation of the relevant facts, including information that may contradict claims in the petition. See 50 CFR 424.14(d). If the petitioner provides supplemental information before the initial finding is made and states that it is part of the petition, the new information, along with the previously submitted information, is treated as a new petition that supersedes the original petition, and the statutory timeframes will begin when such supplemental information is received. See 50 CFR 424.14(g). We may also consider information readily available at the time the determination is made (50 CFR 424.14(h)(1)(ii)). We are not required to consider any supporting materials cited by the petitioner if the petitioner does not provide electronic or hard copies, to the extent permitted by U.S. copyright law, or appropriate excerpts or quotations from those materials ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> publications, maps, reports, letters from authorities). See 50 CFR 424.14(c)(6). The “substantial scientific or commercial information” standard must be applied in light of any prior reviews or findings we have made on the listing status of the species that is the subject of the petition (50 CFR 424.14(h)(1)(iii)). Where we have already conducted a finding on, or review of, the listing status of that species (whether in response to a petition or on our own initiative), we will evaluate any petition received thereafter seeking to list, delist, or reclassify that species to determine whether a reasonable person conducting an impartial scientific review would conclude that the action proposed in the petition may be warranted despite the previous review or finding. Where the prior review resulted in a final agency action—such as a final listing determination, 90-day not-substantial finding, or 12-month not-warranted finding—a petitioned action will generally not be considered to present substantial scientific and commercial information indicating that the action may be warranted unless the petition provides new information or analysis not previously considered. At the 90-day finding stage, we do not conduct additional research, and we do not solicit information from parties outside the agency to help us in evaluating the petition. We will accept the petitioners' sources and characterizations ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 49k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━