Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; 12-Month Finding for Lake Sturgeon

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 17</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-R3-ES-2024-0022; FXES11110900000-245-FF09E21000]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; 12-Month Finding for Lake Sturgeon</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notification of petition finding. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), announce a 12-month finding on a petition to list the lake sturgeon ( <E T="03">Acipenser fulvescens</E> ) as an endangered or threatened species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act). After a thorough review of the best available scientific and commercial information, we find that listing the lake sturgeon as an endangered or threatened species is not warranted at this time. However, we ask the public to submit to us at any time any new information relevant to the status of the lake sturgeon or its habitat. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The finding in this document was made April 23, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> A detailed description of the basis for this finding is available on the internet at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FWS-R3-ES-2024-0022. Supporting information used to prepare this finding is available by contacting the person listed under <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> . Please submit any new information, materials, comments, or questions concerning this finding to the person listed under <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> . <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Barbara Hosler, Regional Listing Coordinator, Midwest Regional Office, 517-351-6326, <E T="03">barbara_hosler@fws.gov.</E> Individuals in the United States who are deaf, deafblind, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability may dial 711 (TTY, TDD, or TeleBraille) to access telecommunications relay services. Individuals outside the United States should use the relay services offered within their country to make international calls to the point-of-contact in the United States. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> Under section 4(b)(3)(B) of the Act (16 U.S.C. 1531 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ), we are required to make a finding on whether or not a petitioned action is warranted within 12 months after receiving any petition that we have determined contains substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted (“12-month finding”). We must make a finding that the petitioned action is: (1) Not warranted; (2) warranted; or (3) warranted, but precluded by other listing activity. We must publish a notification of the 12-month finding in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . <HD SOURCE="HD1">Summary of Information Pertaining to the Five Factors</HD> Section 4 of the Act (16 U.S.C. 1533) and the implementing regulations at part 424 of title 50 of the Code of Federal Regulations (50 CFR part 424) set forth procedures for adding species to, removing species from, or reclassifying species on the Lists of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants (Lists). The Act defines “species” as including any subspecies of fish or wildlife or plants, and any distinct population segment of any species of vertebrate fish or wildlife which interbreeds when mature. The Act defines “endangered species” as any species that is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range (16 U.S.C. 1532(6)), and “threatened species” as any species that is likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range (16 U.S.C. 1532(20)). Under section 4(a)(1) of the Act, a species may be determined to be an endangered species or a threatened species because of any of the following five factors: (A) The present or threatened destruction, modification, or curtailment of its habitat or range; (B) Overutilization for commercial, recreational, scientific, or educational purposes; (C) Disease or predation; (D) The inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms; or (E) Other natural or manmade factors affecting its continued existence. These factors represent broad categories of natural or human-caused actions or conditions that could have an effect on a species' continued existence. In evaluating these actions and conditions, we look for those that may have a negative effect on individuals of the species, as well as other actions or conditions that may ameliorate any negative effects or may have positive effects. We use the term “threat” to refer in general to actions or conditions that are known to or are reasonably likely to negatively affect individuals of a species. The term “threat” includes actions or conditions that have a direct impact on individuals (direct impacts), as well as those that affect individuals through alteration of their habitat or required resources (stressors). The term “threat” may encompass—either together or separately—the source of the action or condition or the action or condition itself. However, the mere identification of any threat(s) does not necessarily mean that the species meets the statutory definition of an “endangered species” or a “threatened species.” In determining whether a species meets either definition, we must evaluate all identified threats by considering the expected response by the species, and the effects of the threats—in light of those actions and conditions that will ameliorate the threats—on an individual, population, and species level. We evaluate each threat and its expected effects on the species, then analyze the cumulative effect of all of the threats on the species as a whole. We also consider the cumulative effect of the threats in light of those actions and conditions that will have positive effects on the species, such as any existing regulatory mechanisms or conservation efforts. The Secretary of the Interior determines whether the species meets the Act's definition of an “endangered species” or a “threatened species” only after conducting this cumulative analysis and describing the expected effect on the species now and in the foreseeable future. The Act does not define the term “foreseeable future,” which appears in the statutory definition of “threatened species.” Our implementing regulations at 50 CFR 424.11(d) set forth a framework for evaluating the foreseeable future on a case-by-case basis. The term “foreseeable future” extends only so far into the future as the Service can reasonably determine that both the future threats and the species' responses to those threats are likely. In other words, the foreseeable future is the period of time in which we can make reliable predictions. “Reliable” does not mean “certain;” it means sufficient to provide a reasonable degree of confidence in the prediction. Thus, a prediction is reliable if it is reasonable to depend on it when making decisions. It is not always possible or necessary to define foreseeable future as a particular number of years. Analysis of the foreseeable future uses the best scientific and commercial data available and should consider the timeframes applicable to the relevant threats and to the species' likely responses to those threats in view of its life-history characteristics. Data that are typically relevant to assessing the species' biological response include species-specific factors such as lifespan, reproductive rates or productivity, certain behaviors, and other demographic factors. In conducting our evaluation of the five factors provided in section 4(a)(1) of the Act to determine whether lake sturgeon meets the Act's definition of an “endangered species” or “threatened species,” we considered and thoroughly evaluated the best scientific and commercial information available regarding the past, present, and future stressors and threats. We reviewed the petition, information available in our files, and other available published and unpublished information for the species. Our evaluation may include information from recognized experts; Federal, State, and Tribal governments; academic institutions; foreign governments; private entities; and other members of the public. The species assessment form for the lake sturgeon contains more detailed biological information, a thorough analysis of the listing factors, a list of literature cited, and an explanation of why we determined that the species does not meet the Act's definition of an “endangered species” or a “threatened species.” To inform our status reviews, we completed a species status assessment (SSA) report for the lake sturgeon. The SSA report contains a thorough review of the taxonomy, life history, ecology, current status, and projected future status for the lake sturgeon. This supporting information can be found on the internet at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> under the Docket No. FWS-R3-ES-2024-0022. Our analysis for this decision applied our current regulations, portions of which were last revised in 2019. Given that we proposed further revisions to these regulations on June 22, 2023 (88 FR 40764), we have also analyzed whether the decision would be different if we were to apply those proposed revisions. We concluded that the decision would have been the same if we had applied the proposed 2023 regulations. The analyses under both the regulations currently in effect and the regulations after incorporating the June 22, 2023, proposed revisions are included in our decision file for this action. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Previous Federal Actions</HD> On May 23, 2018, we received a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity requesting that the lake s ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 28k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━