Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Threatened Species Status With Section 4(d) Rule for the Santa Ana Speckled Dace

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 17</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-R8-ES-2024-0018; FXES1111090FEDR-245-FF09E21000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BH39</RIN> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Threatened Species Status With Section 4(d) Rule for the Santa Ana Speckled Dace</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), propose to list the Santa Ana speckled dace ( <E T="03">Rhinichthys gabrielino</E> ), a fish species native to California, as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act). This determination also serves as our 12-month finding on a petition to list the Santa Ana speckled dace. After a review of the best available scientific and commercial information, we find that listing the species is warranted. Accordingly, we propose to list the Santa Ana speckled dace as a threatened species with protective regulations issued under section 4(d) of the Act (“4(d) rule”). If we finalize this rule as proposed, it would add this species to the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and extend the Act's protections to the species. Due to the current lack of data sufficient to perform required analyses, we conclude that the designation of critical habitat for the species is not determinable at this time. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> We will accept comments received or postmarked on or before October 15, 2024. Comments submitted electronically using the Federal eRulemaking Portal (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> , below) must be received by 11:59 p.m. eastern time on the closing date. We must receive requests for a public hearing, in writing, at the address shown in <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> by September 27, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments by one of the following methods: (1) <E T="03">Electronically:</E> Go to the Federal eRulemaking Portal: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> In the Search box, enter FWS-R8-ES-2024-0018, which is the docket number for this rulemaking. Then, click on the Search button. On the resulting page, in the panel on the left side of the screen, under the Document Type heading, check the Proposed Rule box to locate this document. You may submit a comment by clicking on “Comment.” (2) <E T="03">By hard copy:</E> Submit by U.S. mail to: Public Comments Processing, Attn: FWS-R8-ES-2024-0018, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, MS: PRB/3W, 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041-3803. We request that you send comments only by the methods described above. We will post all comments on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> This generally means that we will post any personal information you provide us (see Information Requested, below, for more information). <E T="03">Availability of supporting materials:</E> Supporting materials, such as the species status assessment report, are available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FWS-R8-ES-2024-0018. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Scott Sobiech, Field Supervisor, Carlsbad Fish and Wildlife Office, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2177 Salk Avenue, Carlsbad CA 92008; telephone 760-431-9440. 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. Please see Docket No. FWS-R8-ES-2024-0018 on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> for a document that summarizes this proposed rule. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Executive Summary</HD> <E T="03">Why we need to publish a rule.</E> Under the Act (16 U.S.C. 1531 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ), a species warrants listing if it meets the definition of an endangered species (in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range) or a threatened species (likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range). If we determine that a species warrants listing, we must list the species promptly and designate the species' critical habitat to the maximum extent prudent and determinable. We have determined that the Santa Ana speckled dace meets the Act's definition of a threatened species; therefore, we are proposing to list it as such. Listing a species as an endangered or threatened species can be completed only by issuing a rule through the Administrative Procedure Act rulemaking process (5 U.S.C. 551 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). <E T="03">What this document does.</E> We propose to list the Santa Ana speckled dace as a threatened species with protective regulations issued under section 4(d) of the Act. <E T="03">The basis for our action.</E> Under the Act, we may determine that a species is an endangered or threatened species because of any of 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. We have determined that the Santa Ana speckled dace is threatened due to the following threats: habitat loss (due to urban development), habitat degradation (roadways, recreational activities, mining activities, and hydrological modifications and diversions), habitat fragmentation, increased fire frequency and intensity, climate change effects ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> warmer air temperatures, more intense precipitation events including drought and flooding), nonnative species (invasive aquatic species predation and competition), and small population effects ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> inbreeding depression and loss of genetic diversity). Section 4(a)(3) of the Act requires the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary), to the maximum extent prudent and determinable, concurrently with listing designate critical habitat for the species. We have not yet been able to obtain the necessary economic information needed to develop a proposed critical habitat designation for the Santa Ana speckled dace, although we are in the process of obtaining this information. At this time, we find that designation of critical habitat for the Santa Ana speckled dace is not determinable. When critical habitat is not determinable, the Act allows the Service an additional year to publish a critical habitat designation (16 U.S.C. 1533(b)(6)(C)(ii)). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Information Requested</HD> We intend that any final action resulting from this proposed rule will be based on the best scientific and commercial data available and be as accurate and as effective as possible. Therefore, we request comments or information from other governmental agencies, Native American Tribes, the scientific community, industry, or any other interested parties concerning this proposed rule. We particularly seek comments concerning: (1) The species' biology, range, and population trends, including: (a) Biological or ecological requirements of the species, including habitat requirements for feeding, breeding, and sheltering; (b) Genetics and taxonomy; (c) Historical and current range, including distribution patterns and the locations of any additional populations of this species; (d) Historical and current population levels, and current and projected trends; and (e) Past and ongoing conservation measures for the species, its habitat, or both. (2) Threats and conservation actions affecting the species, including: (a) Factors that may be affecting the continued existence of the species, which may include habitat modification or destruction, overutilization, disease, predation, the inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms, or other natural or manmade factors; (b) Biological, commercial trade, or other relevant data concerning any threats (or lack thereof) to this species; and (c) Existing regulations or conservation actions that may be addressing threats to this species. (3) Additional information concerning the historical and current status of this species. (4) Information to assist with applying or issuing protective regulations under section 4(d) of the Act that may be necessary and advisable to provide for the conservation of the Santa Ana speckled dace. In particular, we seek information concerning the extent to which we should include any of the section 9 prohibitions in the 4(d) rule or whether we should consider any additional exceptions from the prohibitions in the 4(d) rule. Please include sufficient information with your submission (such as scientific journal articles or other publications) to allow us to verify any scientific or commercial information you include. Please note that submissions merely stating support for, or opposition to, the action under consideration without providing supporting information, although noted, do not provide substantial information necessary to support a determination. Section 4(b)(1)(A) of the Act directs that determinations as to whether any species is an endangered or a threatened species must be made solely on the basis of the best scientific and commercial data available. You may submit your comments and materials concerning this proposed rule by one of the methods listed in <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> . We request that you send comments on ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 142k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━