Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants: Reclassification of Pillar Coral (Dendrogyra cylindrus) From Threatened to Endangered

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Parts 223 and 224</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 241112-0291; RTID 0648-XR126]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT> Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants: Reclassification of Pillar Coral ( <E T="0714">Dendrogyra cylindrus</E> ) From Threatened to Endangered </SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS is changing the status of pillar coral ( <E T="03">Dendrogyra cylindrus</E> ) from threatened to endangered on the Federal List of Threatened and Endangered Species. We have considered the 5-year review of the status of <E T="03">D. cylindrus,</E> expert reviewer comments, and public comments submitted on the proposed rule. Based on this information, we have determined that <E T="03">D. cylindrus</E> is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range. Thus, we are changing the status of <E T="03">D. cylindrus</E> from threatened to endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on February 18, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Public comments that were submitted on the proposed rule to change the status of <E T="03">D. cylindrus</E> are available at: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> identified by docket number NOAA-NMFS-2023-0002. A list of references cited in the final rule and other supporting materials are available at: <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/pillar-coral/conservation-management,</E> or by submitting a request to the National Marine Fisheries Service, Southeast Regional Office, Protected Resources Division, 263 13th Avenue South, St. Petersburg, Florida 33701. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Alison Moulding, 727-551-5607, <E T="03">alison.moulding@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On September 10, 2014, we published a final rule listing <E T="03">D. cylindrus,</E> along with 4 other Caribbean coral species and 15 Indo-Pacific coral species, as threatened under the ESA (79 FR 53851, September 10, 2014). In early 2021, we announced a 5-year review of 7 threatened Caribbean coral species, including <E T="03">D. cylindrus</E> (86 FR 1091, January 7, 2021) to determine whether the listing classification of these species was still accurate. Based on the findings of the 5-year review (NMFS, 2022), we published a proposed rule to change the status of <E T="03">D. cylindrus</E> from threatened to endangered (88 FR 59494, August 29, 2023). We solicited peer review of the scientific information contained in the proposed rule from three independent experts from the scientific community who have expertise in <E T="03">D. cylindrus</E> biology, ecology, conservation, and threats to the species, and we incorporated their comments prior to publication of the proposed rule. We requested comments on the proposed rule from the public during a 60-day comment period and held a virtual public hearing on September 26, 2023, at which we also accepted public comments. In this final rule, we are reclassifying <E T="03">D. cylindrus</E> from a threatened species to an endangered species under the ESA. We have determined that <E T="03">D. cylindrus</E> is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range. This final determination is based on the information in the 5-year review, from expert peer reviewers, and from public comments, which together comprise the best scientific and commercial data available. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Listing Determinations Under the ESA</HD> Section 3 of the ESA defines an endangered species as any species that is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range and a threatened species as one that is likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range (16 U.S.C. 1532(6) and (20)). Thus, an “endangered species” is one that is presently in danger of extinction. A “threatened species,” on the other hand, is not presently in danger of extinction but is likely to become so within the foreseeable future ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> at a later time). So, the primary statutory difference between a threatened and endangered species is the timing of when a species is in danger of extinction, either presently (endangered) or not presently but within the foreseeable future (threatened). The statute requires us to determine whether a species is threatened or endangered as a result of any of the factors listed in section 4(a)(1) of the ESA: (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. Changes to a listed species' status must be determined on the basis of these factors using solely the best scientific and commercial data available (16 U.S.C. 1533(c)(2)(B)). Implementing regulations in 50 CFR 424.11(b) reiterate the requirement that changes in a species' classifications must be based solely on the best available scientific and commercial information regarding a species' status. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Public Comments and Our Responses</HD> Public comments were accepted by standard mail, email, during the public hearing, and through the Federal eRulemaking portal. We received 17 public comments on the proposed rule from individuals, government agencies, and conservation organizations. Of these, 14 comments were supportive of the proposed reclassification of <E T="03">D. cylindrus,</E> 1 comment was against reclassification, and 2 comments were neutral and asked for clarification on the effects of the reclassification. Most of the supportive comments expressed general support for the proposed rule but did not include substantive content. Several comments presented general information on threats or information that was already considered in the proposed rule. We received 3 comments that provided documentation that reinforced the information on demographic factors and threats considered in the proposed rule, including population declines and susceptibility to climate-induced ocean warming, ocean acidification, nutrients, sedimentation, and disease. We also received 1 comment that is outside the scope of the proposed rule that stated that we need to provide support for the increased administrative burden on state and Federal agencies that results from listing and changing the status of species under the ESA, and that we need to increase the Federal funds designated for the management and recovery of ESA-listed species. All substantive public comments on the proposed rule to reclassify <E T="03">D. cylindrus</E> as endangered are addressed in the following summary. We have categorized comments by topic, and, where appropriate, we have combined similar comments from multiple people or groups and addressed them together. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Demographics and Threats</HD> <E T="03">Comment 1:</E> Three commenters provided additional references (Jones <E T="03">et al.,</E> 2021, Alvarez-Filip <E T="03">et al.,</E> 2022) that addressed population decline of <E T="03">D. cylindrus</E> from disease and were not included in the proposed rule or 5-year review (NMFS, 2022). <E T="03">Response:</E> We thank these commenters for the submission of additional data to inform the status of the species and this final rule. Jones <E T="03">et al.</E> (2021) suggests that thermal stress in 2014 and 2015 exacerbated underlying disease and resulted in a disease outbreak that led to the extirpation of <E T="03">D. cylindrus</E> in southeast Florida. Alvarez-Filip <E T="03">et al.</E> (2022), reported that greater than 80 percent of <E T="03">D. cylindrus</E> surveyed in Mexico suffered mortality or were infected by disease between 2018 and 2020. Population declines in Florida and Mexico and the threats of disease and ocean warming were considered in the proposed rule as factors leading to the extinction risk of <E T="03">D. cylindrus.</E> The additional references are consistent with the information we considered in the proposed rule. Thus, these comments support our conclusions regarding the threats of ocean warming and disease and provide additional support for our conclusion that <E T="03">D. cylindrus</E> meets the definition of an endangered species. These references were incorporated into the final rule. <E T="03">Comment 2:</E> We received several comments and references about the threat of climate change and its negative effects on corals that increase the extinction risk for <E T="03">D. cylindrus.</E> <E T="03">Response:</E> We agree that the effects of climate change are contributing to the risk of extinction of <E T="03">D. cylindrus.</E> In the original listing rule (79 FR 53851, September 10, 2014), we identified factors acting directly as stressors on <E T="03">D. cylindrus</E> ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> elevated ocean temperature and sedimentation) as distinct from the sources responsible for those factors ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> climate change and land management practices) and evaluated the impact each threat has on the species' extinction risk. The susceptibility of <E T="03">D. cylindrus</E> to ocean warming and ocean acidification was addressed in the 5-year review (NMFS, 2022) and in the proposed recl ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 54k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━