Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Emergency Listing of the Blue Tree Monitor as an Endangered Species

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 17</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-HQ-ES-2023-0033; FXES1113090FEDR-256-FF09E22000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BH98</RIN> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Emergency Listing of the Blue Tree Monitor as an Endangered Species</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Temporary rule; emergency action. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), exercise our authority pursuant to the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act), to emergency list the blue tree monitor ( <E T="03">Varanus macraei</E> ), a lizard species from Indonesia, as an endangered species. Due to overcollection for the international pet trade and deforestation, there is a significant risk to the well-being of the species. We find that the emergency listing is necessary in order to provide the protective measures afforded by the Act to the blue tree monitor. This emergency action (emergency rule) provides Federal protection pursuant to the Act for a period of 240 days. A proposed rule to list the blue tree monitor is published concurrently with this emergency rule in the Proposed Rules section of this issue of the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This temporary rule is effective December 26, 2024 through August 25, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> This temporary rule, the species status assessment report and other materials related to this temporary rule, and the proposed rule published concurrently with this temporary rule are available on the internet at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FWS-HQ-ES-2023-0033. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Rachel London, Manager, Branch of Delisting and Foreign Species, Ecological Services Program, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, MS: ES, 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041-3803; telephone 703-358-2171. 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">Previous Federal Actions</HD> On April 15, 2022, we received a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity requesting that the blue tree monitor be listed as an endangered or threatened species and that the petition be considered on an emergency basis. The Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act; 16 U.S.C. 1531 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ), does not provide a process to petition for emergency listing; therefore, we evaluated the petition to determine if it presented substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted. On August 17, 2023, we published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (88 FR 55991) a 90-day finding that the petition presented substantial scientific and commercial information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Supporting Documents</HD> A species status assessment (SSA) team prepared an SSA report, which is currently under peer review, for the blue tree monitor. 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 ( <E T="03">https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/documents/peer-review-policy-directors-memo-2016-08-22.pdf</E> ), we will solicit independent scientific review of the information contained in the blue tree monitor SSA report concurrent with the open comment period identified in the proposed rule that is published concurrently with this emergency action (emergency rule) and found in the Proposed Rules section of this issue of the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . The SSA report and other materials related to this emergency rule, including the proposed rule, can be found at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FWS-HQ-ES-2023-0033. We note that, because we were already conducting a status review of the species, we had completed an SSA report prior to publishing this emergency listing rule. Therefore, we discretionarily incorporate information from the SSA report here, recognizing emergency listing rules do not require this level of detail and analysis. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Species Information</HD> A thorough review of the taxonomy, life history, and ecology of the blue tree monitor is presented in the SSA report (Service 2024, entire). The blue tree monitor ( <E T="03">Varanus macraei</E> ) is a species of monitor lizard that was first described in 2001 (Böhme and Jacobs 2001, entire), and genetic testing confirms it is a distinct species (Ziegler et al. 2007, p. 16) that occupies the <E T="03">V. prasinus</E> species complex (subgenus <E T="03">Hapturosaurus;</E> Bucklitsch et al. 2016, pp. 37-38). The blue tree monitor has sharp claws, a long prehensile tail, and smooth and unkeeled neck scales, and it is distinguished from other tree monitor species by a unique blue spotted pattern throughout its body (Böhme and Jacobs 2001, pp. 7-9; Auliya and Koch 2020, p. 72). Adults average a snout vent length of 31 centimeters (cm) (12.2 inches (in)) and total length of 88 cm (34.6 in) (Arida et al. 2021, p. 115; Del Canto 2013, p. 19; Ziegler et al. 2009, p. 123). The blue tree monitor is a narrow-ranging endemic (highly local and known to exist only in their place of origin), and is native to the island of Batanta, within the Raja Ampat Islands of Papua, Indonesia (Böhme and Jacobs 2004, p. 214). The species is rarely encountered on Batanta, so there is little detail available on its life-history and habitat requirements (Philipp and Philipp 2007, p. 867; Auliya and Koch 2020, p. 72). The blue tree monitor is diurnal and arboreal (Böhme and Jacobs 2004, p. 214; Del Canto 2013, p. 19; Ziegler et al. 2009, p. 122), primarily feeds on invertebrates (Auliya and Koch 2020, p. 72; Del Canto 2013, p. 20), and occupies low-lying forested habitats with an ambient humidity that ranges from 65 to 100 percent (Del Canto 2013, p. 19; Sprackland 2011, unpaginated). No quantitative population information exists for the species (Bennett 2015, p. 50), though there is evidence of declines in the wild population on Batanta as a result of overcollection for the pet trade (Arida et al. 2021, pp. 113-114; Del Canto 2013, p. 19). Blue tree monitors are valuable on the international pet market, and collecting and selling them is a source of income for local residents on Batanta (Arida et al. 2021, pp. 112-115). Blue tree monitors have been overcollected to the point that the species is now undetectable or extirpated from multiple localities on eastern Batanta (Del Canto 2013, p. 19; Arida et al. 2021, pp. 112-114), and lizard hunters report they are finding fewer specimens during week-long hunting sessions than they were historically and now must travel to more remote areas of the island to collect the species (Arida et al. 2021, pp. 114-116). Monitor lizards have a high mortality rate along the trade route and in captivity (Natusch and Lyons 2012, p. 2902; Mendyk 2015, p. 3), and many individuals are injured or die before they are exported from Indonesia (Natusch and Lyons 2012, p. 2902). Thus, the number of individuals in trade reported by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Trade Database are likely a fraction of those that are taken from the wild. According to the CITES Trade Database, between 2003 and 2022, a total of 5,502 individual blue tree monitors were exported from Indonesia for commercial purposes (Service 2024, p. 11). The Service's Law Enforcement Management Information System (LEMIS) recorded the importation of 1,584 live blue tree monitors into the United States between March 2004 and August 2024 (Service 2024, p. 11). During this period, the declared value per individual blue tree monitor has nearly doubled, which is likely a reflection of the increasing rarity of the species, and the increasing demand for the species driving further pressure on the species in the wild (Service 2024, p. 9). In 2023, LEMIS recorded the importation of 153 individual blue tree monitors, the highest annual importation on record, and a clear signal that the trade of blue tree monitors is continuing at a likely unsustainable level (Service 2024, p. 11). Because reptile collectors often desire to keep rare and brightly colored species in their collection (Altherr and Lameter 2020, p. 6), the demand for blue tree monitors on the international pet market will likely continue to remain high. Overcollection for the pet trade is known to cause extirpations in newly described reptile species (Stuart et al. 2006, p. 1137). Overcollection represents an immediate threat to the blue tree monitor's viability because unsustainable exploitation will likely lead to the species becoming a rarer and more valuable commodity on the pet market, thus a more appealing target for collection, and may ultimately drive the wild population ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 29k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━