Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Endangered Species Status for Sira Curassow and Southern Helmeted Curassow

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 17</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-HQ-ES-2023-0053; FXES1111090FEDR-245-FF09E22000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BG55</RIN> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Endangered Species Status for Sira Curassow and Southern Helmeted Curassow</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), determine endangered species status under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (Act), as amended, for the Sira curassow ( <E T="03">Pauxi koepckeae</E> ) and southern helmeted curassow ( <E T="03">Pauxi unicornis</E> ), two bird species from South America. This rule extends the protections of the Act to these species. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective August 26, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> This final rule is available on the internet at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Comments and materials we received are available for public inspection at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> at Docket No. FWS-HQ-ES-2023-0053. <E T="03">Availability of supporting materials:</E> Supporting materials we used in preparing this rule, such as the species status assessment report, are available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> at Docket No. FWS-HQ-ES-2023-0053. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Rachel London, Manager, Branch of Delisting and Foreign Species, Ecological Services Program, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, MS: ES, 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041-3803; telephone 703-358-2491. 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">Previous Federal Actions</HD> Please refer to the proposed listing rule (88 FR 34800) for the Sira curassow and southern helmeted curassow published on May 31, 2023, for a detailed description of previous Federal actions concerning these species. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Peer Review</HD> A species status assessment (SSA) team prepared an SSA report for the Sira curassow and southern helmeted curassow. The SSA team was composed of Service biologists, in consultation with other species experts. The SSA report represents a compilation of the best scientific and commercial data available concerning the status of these species, including the impacts of past, present, and future factors (both negative and beneficial) affecting these species. In accordance with our joint policy on peer review published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on July 1, 1994 (59 FR 34270), and our August 22, 2016, memorandum updating and clarifying the role of peer review in listing actions under the Act, we solicited independent scientific review of the information contained in the Sira curassow and southern helmeted curassow SSA report. As discussed in the proposed rule, we sent the SSA report to five independent peer reviewers and received one response. The peer review can be found at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FWS-HQ-ES-2023-0053. In preparing the proposed rule, we incorporated the results of this review, as appropriate, into the SSA report, which was the foundation for the proposed rule and this final rule. A summary of the peer review comments and our responses can be found in the proposed rule (88 FR 34800; May 31, 2023). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Summary of Changes From the Proposed Rule</HD> In this final rule, we make no substantive changes from the May 31, 2023, proposed rule (88 FR 34800) after considering the comments we received during the comment period. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Summary of Comments and Recommendations</HD> In the proposed rule published on May 31, 2023 (88 FR 34800), we requested that all interested parties submit written comments on the proposal by July 31, 2023. We also contacted appropriate Federal agencies, scientific experts and organizations, and other interested parties and invited them to comment on the proposal. All substantive information received during comment periods has either been incorporated directly into this final determination or is addressed below. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Public Comments</HD> We considered all comments and information we received from the public during the comment period for the proposed listing of the Sira curassow and southern helmeted curassow. We received a total of five comments from the public, all of which support the proposed listing of these species as endangered. One commenter suggested that both species may be in international trade because there may be demand for species in the <E T="03">Pauxi</E> genus, particularly for ornamental use of the species' helmet (casque). The commenter provided some examples of trade in <E T="03">Pauxi</E> species; however, the species involved were either not the Sira or southern helmeted curassow or the species were not determined. While the commenter noted some efforts to regulate and monitor international trade in southern helmeted curassow by other countries, international trade has not been noted for the Sira curassow or southern helmeted curassow in assessments of these species (BLI 2023a and 2023b, unpaginated; IUCN 2023b and IUCN 2023c, unpaginated). Our evaluation of the best available data does not indicate international trade is a threat to either species. However, as explained in further detail below, after evaluating the best scientific and commercial data available regarding threats to the species and assessing the cumulative effect of the threats under the Act's section 4(a)(1) factors, we determined endangered species status for each species as proposed. Four of the five public comments suggested that the length of time between when we were petitioned to list the southern helmeted curassow in 1991 and the proposed listing in 2023 is too long, particularly because we had determined the species was warranted for listing in 1994 but precluded by other priorities. We recognize the length of time between first making the southern helmeted curassow a candidate species and this final listing rule. For more information on our process and progress making listing decisions for foreign species, see the annual review of candidate species, annual notification of findings on resubmitted petitions, and description of progress on listing actions (88 FR 41560; June 27, 2023). In June 2023, the Service released its most recent Foreign Species Workplan for addressing the Act's foreign listing decisions, which is available online at: <E T="03">https://www.fws.gov/project/foreign-species-listing-workplan.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Final Listing Determination</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Background</HD> A thorough review of the taxonomy, life history, and ecology of the Sira curassow ( <E T="03">Pauxi koepckeae</E> ) and southern helmeted curassow (or horned curassow; <E T="03">Pauxi unicornis</E> ) is presented in the SSA report (version 1; Service 2023, pp. 2-8). The Sira curassow, which is endemic to central Peru, and southern helmeted curassow, which is endemic to central Bolivia, are gallinaceous birds (relating to the order Galliformes of heavy-bodied, largely terrestrial birds) in the Cracidae family (subfamily Cracinae; del Hoyo 1994, in Hosner et al. 2016, p. 6; del Hoyo et al. 2020a, unpaginated). Both species are large (83-94 centimeters (32-37 inches) in length) and relatively heavy-bodied (about 3.6 kilograms (8 pounds)) with bright red bills and a pale blue “helmet” (casque) atop their heads (del Hoyo et al. 2020b, unpaginated). Both curassow species occur on the eastern side of the Andes Mountains of South America, although their ranges do not overlap and are separated by more than 1,000 kilometers (km) (621 miles (mi)) (Gastañaga et al. 2007, p. 63). The Sira curassow is resident in cloud forests at mid to high elevation (1,100 to 1,500 meters (m) (3,609 to 4,921 feet (ft)) above sea level (asl); Begazo 2022, unpaginated; Beirne et al. 2017, p. 150; Gastañaga et al. 2011, p. 268) and is known only from the Cerros del Sira in central Peru that is an isolated mountain outcrop of the Peruvian Andes. Almost all the species' range is within the El Sira Communal Reserve (Birdlife International (BLI) 2023a, unpaginated; Gastañaga et al. 2011, p. 269; Gastañaga et al. 2007, p. 63; Tobias and del Hoyo 2006, p. 61). The southern helmeted curassow is resident at lower elevations (400 to 1,400 m (1,312 to 4,593 ft) asl) in upper tropical and lower montane zones in central Bolivia (Herzog and Kessler 1998, pp. 46-47; Cox et al. 1997, p. 200; Cordier 1971, p. 10; Birds of Bolivia 2019, unpaginated; Beirne et al. 2017, p. 150), although most observations are between 500 and 900 m (1,640 to 2,953 ft) asl (Armonía 2021, p. 3). The species occurs only within three national parks in central Bolivia: Amboró, Carrasco, and Isiboro-Securé Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS) (BLI 2023b, unpaginated). Both the Sira curassow and southern helmeted curassow are endemic to small areas in relatively narrow elevational bands and are considered rare, locally uncommon with densities estimated at less than one individual per square kilometer, and their populations are decreasing (BLI 2023a and 2023b, unpaginated). The Sira curassow was surveyed in 2006 and 2008, but rangewide surveys have not occurred for this species (Gastañaga et al. 2011, p. 273). ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 66k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━