Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Endangered Species Status for Cedar Key Mole Skink and Designation of Critical Habitat

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 17</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-R4-ES-2024-0053; FXES1111090FEDR-245-FF09E21000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BH41</RIN> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Endangered Species Status for Cedar Key Mole Skink and Designation of Critical Habitat</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 Cedar Key mole skink ( <E T="03">Plestiodon egregius insularis</E> ), a lizard subspecies from the Cedar Keys, Florida, as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act). After a review of the best available scientific and commercial information, we find that listing this subspecies is warranted. We also propose to designate critical habitat for the Cedar Key mole skink under the Act. In total, approximately 2,713 acres (1,098 hectares) in Levy County, Cedar Keys, Florida, fall within the boundaries of the proposed critical habitat designation. In addition, we announce the availability of an economic analysis of the proposed designation of critical habitat for the Cedar Key mole skink. If we finalize this rule as proposed, it would extend the Act's protections to this subspecies and its designated critical habitat. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> We will accept comments received or postmarked on or before October 7, 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 23, 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-R4-ES-2024-0053, 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-R4-ES-2024-0053, 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 on the Service's website at <E T="03">https://www.fws.gov/office/florida-ecological-services/library</E> and at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> at Docket No. FWS-R4-ES-2024-0053. For the proposed critical habitat designation, the coordinates or plot points or both from which the maps are generated are included in the decision file for this critical habitat designation and are available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> at Docket No. FWS-R4-ES-2024-0053 and on the Service's website at <E T="03">https://www.fws.gov/office/florida-ecological-services/library.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Lourdes Mena, Division Manager, Classification and Recovery, Florida Ecological Services Field Office, 7915 Baymeadows Way, Suite 200, Jacksonville, FL 32256-7517; <E T="03">lourdes_mena@fws.gov;</E> telephone 352-749-2462. 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-R4-ES-2024-0053 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 Cedar Key mole skink meets the Act's definition of an endangered species; therefore, we are proposing to list it as endangered and proposing a designation of its critical habitat. Both listing a species as an endangered or threatened species and making a critical habitat designation 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 Cedar Key mole skink as an endangered species under the Act, and we propose the designation of critical habitat for the subspecies. <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 Cedar Key mole skink is endangered due to threats associated with climate change, specifically sea level rise, increased high tide flooding, and increased intensity of storm events (Factor E). 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. Section 3(5)(A) of the Act defines critical habitat as (i) the specific areas within the geographical area occupied by the species, at the time it is listed, on which are found those physical or biological features (I) essential to the conservation of the species and (II) which may require special management considerations or protections; and (ii) specific areas outside the geographical area occupied by the species at the time it is listed, upon a determination by the Secretary that such areas are essential for the conservation of the species. Section 4(b)(2) of the Act states that the Secretary must make the designation on the basis of the best scientific data available and after taking into consideration the economic impact, the impact on national security, and any other relevant impacts of specifying any particular area as critical habitat. <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 subspecies' biology, range, and population trends, including: (a) Biological or ecological requirements of the subspecies, 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 subspecies; (d) Historical and current population levels, and current and projected trends; and (e) Past and ongoing conservation measures for the subspecies, its habitat, or both. (2) Threats and conservation actions affecting the subspecies, including: (a) Factors that may be affecting the continued existence of the subspecies, which may include habitat modification or destruction, overutilization, disease, predation, the inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms, or other natural or humanmade factors; (b) Biological, commercial trade, or other relevant data concerning any threats (or lack thereof) to this subspecies; and (c) Existing regulations or conservation actions that may be addressing threats to this subspecies. (3) Additional information concerning the historical and current status of this subspecies. (4) Specific information on: (a) The amount and distribution of Cedar Key mole skink habitat; (b) Any additional areas occurring within the range of the subspecies, the Cedar Keys in Levy County, Florida, that should be included in the critical habitat designation because they (i) are occupied at the time of listing and contain the physical or biological feature that is essential to the conservation of the subspecies and that may require special management considerations or protection, or (ii) are unoccupied at the time of listing and are essential for the conservation of the subspecies; (c) Special management considerations or prote ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 190k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━