Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Reclassification of the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker From Endangered to Threatened With a Section 4(d) Rule

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 17</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-R4-ES-2019-0018; FXES1113090FEDR-223-FF09E22000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BE09</RIN> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Reclassification of the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker From Endangered to Threatened With a Section 4(d) Rule</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 or USFWS), are reclassifying the red-cockaded woodpecker ( <E T="03">Dryobates</E> (= <E T="03">Picoides</E> ) <E T="03">borealis</E> ) from endangered to threatened ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> downlisting it) under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act). This action is based on our evaluation of the best available scientific and commercial information, which indicates that the species' status has improved such that it is not currently in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range, but that it is still likely to become so in the foreseeable future. We also finalize protective regulations under the authority of section 4(d) of the Act that are necessary and advisable to provide for the conservation of the red-cockaded woodpecker. In addition, we correct the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife to reflect that Picoides is not the current scientifically accepted generic name for this species. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective November 25, 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-R4-ES-2019-0018. <E T="03">Availability of supporting materials:</E> Supporting materials we used in preparing this rule, such as the 5-year review, the recovery plan, and the species status assessment report, are available on the Service's website at <E T="03">https://fws.gov/species/red-cockaded-woodpecker-dryobates-borealis,</E> at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> at Docket No. FWS-R4-ES-2019-0018, or both. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Nicole Rankin, Manager Division of Conservation and Classification, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Southeast Regional Office, 1875 Century Boulevard, Atlanta, GA 30345; telephone 404-679-7089. 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">Executive Summary</HD> <E T="03">Why we need to publish a rule.</E> Under the Act, a species warrants reclassification from endangered to threatened if it no longer meets the definition of an endangered species (in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range). The red-cockaded woodpecker is listed as endangered, and we are reclassifying (downlisting) it as threatened. We have determined the red-cockaded woodpecker does not meet the Act's definition of an endangered species, but it does meet the definition of a threatened species (likely to become an endangered species throughout all or a significant portion of its range within the foreseeable future). Reclassifying a species as a 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> ). Finally, we are changing the scientific name of the red-cockaded woodpecker on the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife from <E T="03">Picoides borealis</E> to <E T="03">Dryobates borealis,</E> and such revisions to the Code of Federal Regulations can be accomplished only by issuing a rule. <E T="03">What this document does.</E> This final rule reclassifies the red-cockaded woodpecker from endangered to threatened ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> “downlists” the species) on the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and issues protective regulations under the authority of section 4(d) of the Act that are necessary and advisable to provide for the conservation of this species. <E T="03">The basis for our action.</E> Under the Act, we may determine that a species is an endangered species or a 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 may reclassify a species if the best available commercial and scientific data indicate the species no longer meets the applicable definition in the Act. Based on the status review, the current threats analysis, and evaluation of conservation measures discussed in this final rule, we conclude that the red-cockaded woodpecker no longer meets the Act's definition of an endangered species and should be reclassified to a threatened species. The species is no longer in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range but is likely to become so within the foreseeable future. We have determined that red-cockaded woodpecker is a threatened species due to the following threats: • Lack of suitable roosting, nesting, and foraging habitat due to legacy effects from historical logging, incompatible forest management, and conversion of forests to urban and agricultural uses (Factor A). • Fragmentation of habitat, with resulting effects on genetic variation, dispersal, and connectivity to support demographic populations (Factor A). • Stochastic events such as hurricanes, ice storms, and wildfires, exacerbated by the environmental effects of climate change (Factor E). • Small populations (Factor E). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Acronyms and Initialisms Used in This Document</HD> We provide the following list for the convenience of the reader: <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">ANHC—Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">BMPs—best management practices</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CCPs—comprehensive conservation plans</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">DoD—Department of Defense</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">EPA—Environmental Protection Agency</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">ESMCs—endangered species management components</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FFWCC—Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">HCP—habitat conservation plan</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">INRMPs—integrated natural resources management plans</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">LDWF—Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">LRMPs—land and resource management plans</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NCWRC—North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NEPA—National Environmental Policy Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NRCS—Natural Resources Conservation Service</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NWR—National Wildlife Refuge</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">PBG—potential breeding group</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">RFA—Regulatory Flexibility Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">SSA—species status assessment</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">TPWD—Texas Parks and Wildlife Department</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">USACE—U.S. Army Corps of Engineers</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">USFS—U.S. Forest Service</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">WMA—wildlife management area</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Previous Federal Actions</HD> Please refer to the proposed reclassification rule (85 FR 63474) for the red-cockaded woodpecker published on October 8, 2020, and the subsequent revised proposed 4(d) rule (87 FR 6118) published on February 3, 2022, for detailed descriptions of previous Federal actions concerning this species. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Peer Review</HD> A species status assessment (SSA) team prepared an SSA report for the red-cockaded woodpecker. The SSA team was composed of Service biologists, which consulted with other species experts during the process. The SSA report represents a compilation of the best scientific and commercial data available concerning the status of the species, including the impacts of past, present, and future factors (both negative and beneficial) affecting the 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 of listing actions under the Act, we solicited independent scientific review of the information contained in the red-cockaded woodpecker SSA report. As discussed in the proposed rule, we sent the SSA report to six independent peer reviewers and received three responses. The peer reviews can be found at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and <E T="03">https://fws.gov/species/red-cockaded-woodpecker-dryobates-borealis.</E> In preparing the proposed rule, we incorporated the results of these reviews, 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 Summary of Comments and Recommendations below. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Summary of Changes From the Proposed Rule</HD> In preparing this final rule, we reviewed and fully considered comments from the public on the proposed rule. In addition to minor editorial changes, we updated information in this ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 338k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━