Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Endangered Species Status for the Peñasco Least Chipmunk and Designation of Critical Habitat

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 17</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-R2-ES-2020-0042; FXES1111090FEDR-245-FF09E21000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BD94</RIN> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Endangered Species Status for the Peñasco Least Chipmunk and Designation of Critical Habitat</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), list the Peñasco least chipmunk ( <E T="03">Neotamias minimus atristriatus</E> ), a mammal from New Mexico, as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (Act), as amended. We also designate critical habitat. In total, approximately 1,774 hectares (4,386 acres) in Lincoln County, New Mexico, fall within the boundaries of the critical habitat designation. This rule extends the protections of the Act to this species and its designated critical habitat. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective January 9, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> This final rule, the proposed rule, comments and materials we received on the proposed rule, and supporting materials we used in preparing this rule, such as the species status assessment report, are all available on the internet at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> at Docket No. FWS-R2-ES-2020-0042. For the 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 also available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> at Docket No. FWS-R2-ES-2020-0042. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Shawn Sartorius, Field Supervisor, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, New Mexico Ecological Services Field Office, 2105 Osuna Road NE, Albuquerque, NM 87113; telephone 505-346-2525. 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 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 Peñasco least chipmunk meets the definition of an endangered species; therefore, we are listing it as such and finalizing a designation of its critical habitat. Both listing a species as an endangered or threatened species and designating critical habitat 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 lists the Peñasco least chipmunk ( <E T="03">Neotamias minimus atristriatus</E> ) as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. We are also designating critical habitat for this species in three units, on public property totaling 1,774 hectares (4,386 acres) in Lincoln County, New Mexico. <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 Peñasco least chipmunk is endangered due to the following threats: vegetation shifts, wildfire, forest encroachment, recreation, development, and land use (Factor A), disease (Factor C), nonnative species (Factors A and C), and small population size and lack of connectivity (Factor E). Although small population size is the primary stressor to the Peñasco least chipmunk, <E T="03">Risk Factors for Peñasco Least Chipmunk,</E> below, presents a broader discussion of the threats. We have found that existing regulatory mechanisms do not adequately reduce the threats acting on the species to eliminate the risk of extinction (Factor D). Section 4(a)(3) of the Act requires that 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">Previous Federal Actions</HD> Please refer to the proposed listing and critical habitat rule (86 FR 53583) for the Peñasco least chipmunk published on September 28, 2021, for a detailed description 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 Peñasco least chipmunk (Service 2024, entire). 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 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 in listing and recovery actions under the Act, we solicited independent scientific review of the information contained in the Peñasco least chipmunk SSA report. As discussed in the proposed rule, we sent the SSA report to five independent peer reviewers and received three responses. The peer reviews can be found at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> in Docket No. FWS-R2-ES-2020-0042. 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 proposed rule (86 FR 53583; September 28, 2021). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Summary of Changes From the Proposed Rule</HD> We reviewed the comments related to our proposed listing determination and critical habitat for the Peñasco least chipmunk (see Summary of Comments and Recommendations, below), completed our analysis of areas considered for exclusion under section 4(b)(2) of the Act, and reviewed our analysis of the physical or biological features essential to the conservation of the Peñasco least chipmunk. We incorporated new information provided during the comment period into the SSA report, which is available as version 1.1 (Service 2024, entire). This final rule incorporates changes from our 2021 proposed listing and critical habitat rule (86 FR 53583; September 28, 2021) based on the comments that we received and have responded to in this document and considers efforts to conserve the Peñasco least chipmunk. We make several minor revisions in this rule to clarify some information, and we update or add new references. Based on information we received in comments regarding the critical habitat for the Peñasco least chipmunk, we added details to the list of physical or biological features essential to the conservation of the species to more accurately reflect the chipmunk's need for habitat containing widely spaced large-diameter conifers, such as Engelmann spruce ( <E T="03">Picea engelmannii</E> ) or ponderosa pine ( <E T="03">Pinus ponderosa</E> ), intermixed in low densities with the meadow/grassland vegetation. These habitat features provide shade that protects the understory habitat, provide chipmunks cover from aerial predators, and support the species' life history. Additionally, we added discussion regarding the Peñasco least chipmunk's taxonomy, which has been the subject of several scientific articles released since publication of our proposed rule to list the species. In 2023, we received a request from the Mescalero Apache Tribe to exclude portions of the proposed critical habitat from Unit 3-Sierra Blanca in southern New Mexico. The area proposed for designation as critical habitat included subalpine habitat located within the Lincoln National Forest, the Lincoln Natio ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 207k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━