Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Removing Chipola Slabshell and Fat Threeridge From the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 17</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-R4-ES-2024-0051; FXES1113090FEDR-245-FF09E22000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BF55</RIN> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Removing Chipola Slabshell and Fat Threeridge From the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife</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 remove the Chipola slabshell ( <E T="03">Elliptio chipolaensis</E> ) and fat threeridge ( <E T="03">Amblema neislerii</E> ), both freshwater mussels, from the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife due to recovery. These species occur in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin of Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Our review of the best available scientific and commercial data indicates that the threats to the Chipola slabshell and fat threeridge have been eliminated or reduced to the point that both species have recovered and no longer meet the definition of an endangered or threatened species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act). Accordingly, we propose to delist the Chipola slabshell and the fat threeridge. If we finalize this rule as proposed, the prohibitions and conservation measures provided by the Act, particularly through sections 4 and 7 for the Chipola slabshell and sections 7 and 9 for the fat threeridge, would no longer apply to these species. This proposed rule also serves as the completed status review initiated under section 4(c)(2) of the Act. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> We will accept comments received or postmarked on or before December 30, 2024. We must receive requests for public hearings, in writing, at the address shown in <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> by December 13, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">Written comments:</E> 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-2024-0051, which is the docket number for this rulemaking. Then, click on the Search button. On the resulting page, in the Search 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.” Comments must be received by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on the closing date listed in the <E T="02">DATES</E> section. (2) <E T="03">By hard copy:</E> Submit by U.S. mail to: Public Comments Processing, Attn: FWS-R4-ES-2024-0051, 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> This proposed rule and supporting documents, including the recovery plans, 5-year review, and species status assessment (SSA) reports, are available at <E T="03">https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp/</E> and at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FWS-R4-ES-2024-0051. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Gian Basili, Deputy State Supervisor, Florida Ecological Services Office, 7915 Baymeadows Way, Suite 200, Jacksonville, FL 32256-7517; telephone 904-731-3079; email <E T="03">gianfranco_basili@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. Please see Docket No. FWS-R4-ES-2024-0051 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, a species warrants delisting if it no longer 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 in the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range). The Chipola slabshell is listed as a threatened species and the fat threeridge is listed as an endangered species, and we are proposing to delist them. We have determined the Chipola slabshell and fat threeridge do not meet the Act's definition of an endangered or threatened species. Delisting a 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> This rule proposes the removal of the Chipola slabshell and fat threeridge from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife based on their recovery; if we finalize this rule as proposed, the prohibitions and conservation measures provided by the Act, particularly through sections 4 and 7 for the Chipola slabshell and sections 7 and 9 for the fat threeridge, would no longer apply to these species. <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. The determination to delist a species must be based on an analysis of the same factors. Under the Act, we must review the status of all listed species at least once every five years. We must delist a species if we determine, on the basis of the best available scientific and commercial data, that the species is neither a threatened species nor an endangered species. Our regulations at 50 CFR 424.11 identify four reasons why we might determine a species shall be delisted: (1) The species is extinct; (2) the species has recovered to the point at which it no longer meets the definition of an endangered species or a threatened species; (3) new information that has become available since the original listing decision shows the listed entity does not meet the definition of an endangered species or a threatened species; or (4) new information that has become available since the original listing decision shows the listed entity does not meet the definition of a species. Here, we have determined that the Chipola slabshell and fat threeridge have recovered to the point at which they no longer meet the definition of an endangered species or a threatened species; therefore, we are proposing to delist them. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Information Requested</HD> We intend that any final action resulting from this proposal 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 concerned governmental agencies, Native American Tribes, the scientific community, industry, or any other interested parties concerning this proposed rule. We particularly seek comments concerning: (1) Reasons we should or should not remove Chipola slabshell or fat threeridge from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife. (2) Relevant data concerning any threats (or lack thereof) to the Chipola slabshell or fat threeridge, particularly any data on the possible effects of climate change as it relates to habitat, as well as the extent of State protection and management that would be provided to these mussels as delisted species; (3) Current or planned activities within the geographic range of Chipola slabshell and fat threeridge that may have adverse or beneficial impacts on these species; and (4) Considerations for post-delisting monitoring, including monitoring protocols and length of time monitoring is needed, as well as triggers for reevaluation. 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 actions 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 species 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 only by the methods described in <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> . If you submit information via <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> your entire submission—including any personal identifying information—will be posted on the website. If your submission is made via a hardcopy that includes personal identifying information, you may request at the top of your document that we withhold this information from publi ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 141k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━