Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Endangered Species Status for Eastern Hellbender

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 17</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-R3-ES-2024-0152; FXES1111090FEDR-256-FF09E21000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BH79</RIN> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Endangered Species Status for Eastern Hellbender</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 eastern hellbender ( <E T="03">Cryptobranchus alleganiensis alleganiensis</E> ), a salamander subspecies from Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia, as an endangered 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 eastern hellbender. After a review of the best available scientific and commercial information, we find that listing the subspecies is warranted. If we finalize this rule as proposed, it would add this subspecies to the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and extend the Act's protections to the subspecies. We have determined that designation of critical habitat for the eastern hellbender is not prudent. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> We will accept comments received or postmarked on or before February 11, 2025. 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 January 27, 2025. </DATES> <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-R3-ES-2024-0152, 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-R3-ES-2024-0152, 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://fws.gov/species/eastern-hellbender-cryptobranchus-alleganiensis-alleganiensis,</E> at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> at Docket No. FWS-R3-ES-2024-0152, or both. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Erin Knoll, Field Supervisor, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Ohio Ecological Services Field Office, 4625 Morse Road, Suite 104, Columbus, OH 43230; telephone 614-528-9704. 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-R3-ES-2024-0152 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> The Act (16 U.S.C. 1531 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) defines a “species” as including any subspecies of fish or wildlife or plants, and any distinct population segment of any species of vertebrate fish or wildlife which interbreeds when mature. 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 eastern hellbender meets the Act's definition of an endangered 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 eastern hellbender as an endangered species under the Act. This document also includes our determination that the designation of critical habitat is not prudent for the eastern hellbender because this subspecies faces a threat of unauthorized collection and trade, and a critical habitat designation can reasonably be expected to increase the degree of these threats to the subspecies. <E T="03">The basis for our action.</E> Under the Act, we may determine that a species is an endangered 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 have determined that the eastern hellbender is endangered due to the following threats: sedimentation; water quality degradation; habitat destruction and modification; disease; and direct mortality or removal of hellbenders from a population by collection, persecution, recreation, or gravel mining. 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 protection; 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. We have determined that designation of critical habitat for the eastern hellbender is not prudent. <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 eastern hellbender's 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 manmade 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) Information regarding application of our distinct population segment (DPS) policy (61 FR 4722), including: (a) Whether any populations or analysis units of the eastern hellbender meet the criteria for a DPS; and (b) Whether any potential DPS of the eastern hellbender may have a different listing status. (5) Information regarding our determination that designating critical habitat for the eastern hellbender is not prudent. Please include sufficient information with your submission (such as scientific journal articles or other publications) to allow us to verify any sc ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 101k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━