Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Threatened Species Status With Section 4(d) Rule for Monarch Butterfly 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-R3-ES-2024-0137; FXES1111090FEDR-256-FF09E21000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BE30</RIN> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Threatened Species Status With Section 4(d) Rule for Monarch Butterfly 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 monarch butterfly ( <E T="03">Danaus plexippus</E> ), the iconic orange and black butterfly, as a threatened species and designate critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act). We propose to list the monarch butterfly as a threatened species with protective regulations under section 4(d) of the Act (a “4(d) rule”). Finalizing this rule as proposed would add this species to the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and extend the Act's protections to the species. We also propose to designate critical habitat for the monarch butterfly under the Act. In total, approximately 4,395 acres (1,778 hectares) in Alameda, Marin, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Ventura Counties, California, fall within the boundaries of the proposed critical habitat designation. We also announce the availability of an economic analysis of the proposed designation of critical habitat for the monarch butterfly. We also are notifying the public that we have scheduled two informational meetings followed by public hearings on the proposed rule. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> We will accept comments received or postmarked on or before March 12, 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. <E T="03">Public informational meetings and public hearings:</E> We will hold two public informational meetings followed by public hearings. The first meeting and hearing will be from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., eastern time, on January 14, 2025. To accommodate those in western time zones, the second meeting and hearing will be from 8 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., eastern time, on January 15, 2025. </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-R3-ES-2024-0137, 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-2024-0137, 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 at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> at Docket No. FWS-R3-ES-2024-0137. If we finalize the critical habitat designation, we will make the coordinates or plot points or both from which the maps are generated available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> at Docket No. FWS-R3-ES-2024-0137. <E T="03">Public informational meeting and public hearing:</E> The public informational meeting and the public hearing will be held virtually using the Zoom platform. See Public Hearing, below, for more information. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Barbara Hosler, Regional Listing Coordinator, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Midwest Region Headquarters, 5600 American Blvd., Bloomington, MN 55437, telephone 517-580-0254, email: <E T="03">monarch@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-R3-ES-2024-0137 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 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 monarch butterfly meets the Act's definition of a threatened species; therefore, we are proposing to list it as such 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 add the monarch butterfly as a threatened species to the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife with protective regulations under section 4(d) of the Act, and we propose the designation of critical habitat for the 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. We have determined that the monarch butterfly meets the definition of a threatened species due to the following threats: the ongoing impacts from loss and degradation of breeding, migratory, and overwintering habitat (from past conversion of grasslands and shrublands to agriculture and widespread use of herbicides; logging/thinning at overwintering sites in Mexico; urban development, senescence ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> deterioration with age), and incompatible management of overwintering sites in California; and drought) (Factor A); exposure to insecticides (Factor E); and effects of climate change (Factor E). To improve future conditions so that the monarch migratory populations stabilize and grow, we need to (1) achieve a significant increase in the availability of milkweed and nectar plants in monarch breeding and migratory areas; (2) protect and enhance overwintering habitat; (3) avoid and minimize impacts to monarchs and their habitat from insecticides and herbicides; and (4) maintain public support for the conservation of monarch butterflies. Because of the monarch butterfly's general habitat use and wide distribution, all sectors of society, including the general public, have an opportunity to participate in a broad range of conservation efforts throughout the species' range. 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 species' biology, range, and population trends, including: (a) Biological or ecological requirements of the species, including habitat requirements for feeding, breeding, and sheltering; (b) Genetics and taxonomy; (c) Historical and current range, including distribution patterns, alternative migratory pathwa ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 312k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━