Regulatory Authorizations for Migratory Bird and Eagle Possession by the General Public, Educators, and Government Agencies

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Parts 19, 21, and 22</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-HQ-MB-2022-0023; FXMB12320900000-245-FF09M31000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BC76</RIN> <SUBJECT>Regulatory Authorizations for Migratory Bird and Eagle Possession by the General Public, Educators, and Government Agencies</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, are revising current regulatory authorizations and adding new regulatory authorizations for possession of migratory birds and eagles and for other purposes. These regulatory revisions will allow us to authorize the general public, educators, and government agency employees to possess migratory birds and eagles in certain specific situations and still meet our obligations to protect migratory birds and eagles under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. We also are changing the Airborne Hunting Act regulations to clarify what Federal authorizations may be used to comply with that statute. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective December 31, 2024. <E T="03">Information Collection Requirements:</E> If you wish to comment on the information collection requirements in this rule, please note that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is required to make a decision concerning the collection of information contained in this rule between 30 and 60 days after publication of this rule in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . Therefore, comments should be submitted to the Service Information Collection Clearance Officer, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (see “Information Collection” section below under <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ) by January 30, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">Document availability:</E> This final rule, the proposed rule, and public comments received on the proposed rule are available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> in Docket No. FWS-HQ-MB-2022-0023. <E T="03">Information Collection Requirements:</E> Written comments and suggestions on the information collection requirements should be submitted within 30 days of publication of this document to <E T="03">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain.</E> Find this particular information collection by selecting “Currently under Review—Open for Public Comments” or by using the search function. Please provide a copy of your comments to the Service Information Collection Clearance Officer, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 5275 Leesburg Pike, MS: PRB (JAO/3W), Falls Church, VA 22041-3803 (mail); or <E T="03">Info_Coll@fws.gov</E> (email). Please reference OMB Control Number 1018-0200 in the subject line of your comments. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jerome Ford, Assistant Director-Migratory Birds Program, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, telephone: 703-358-2606, email: <E T="03">MB_mail@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. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) is the Federal agency delegated with the primary responsibility for managing migratory birds, including bald eagles and golden eagles. Our authority derives primarily from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, as amended, 16 U.S.C. 703-12 (MBTA), which implements conventions with Canada, Mexico, Japan, and the Russian Federation. The MBTA protects certain migratory birds from take, except as permitted under the MBTA. We implement the provisions of the MBTA through regulations in parts 10, 13, 20, 21, and 22 of title 50 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). Regulations pertaining to migratory bird permits are set forth at 50 CFR part 21. In addition, the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, 16 U.S.C. 668-668d (the Eagle Act), prohibits take of bald eagles and golden eagles except pursuant to Federal regulations. The Eagle Act authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to issue regulations to permit the “taking” of eagles for various purposes, including the protection of “other interests in any particular locality” (16 U.S.C. 668a), provided the taking is compatible with the preservation of eagles. Regulations pertaining to eagle permits are set forth at 50 CFR part 22. The Service has long authorized activities pertaining to migratory birds under regulatory authorizations. The origins of the regulatory authorization that provides for “general exceptions to permit requirements” (50 CFR 21.12) can be traced back to 1944. Regulatory authorizations are regulations that establish eligibility criteria and conditions without requiring a permit to conduct those activities. Regulatory authorizations are best suited for activities that have straightforward eligibility criteria and well-established conditions and pose a low risk to migratory bird populations. The Service uses regulatory authorizations to authorize the take or possession of migratory birds. We may include mandatory or recommended conditions and recordkeeping, reporting, and inspection requirements. Regulatory authorizations have a relatively low administrative burden because they do not require submission of an application to obtain a permit from the Service prior to conducting an activity. Those who are eligible for a regulatory authorization must comply with any required conditions, including recordkeeping and reporting requirements, and are subject to enforcement for noncompliance. Examples of current regulatory authorizations include general permit exceptions (50 CFR 21.12) as well as depredation and control orders (50 CFR part 21, subpart D). We published a proposed rule on June 1, 2023 (88 FR 35809), to revise the existing regulatory authorizations, add new regulatory authorizations, and amend various provisions in the regulations governing the take and possession of migratory birds and eagles. The proposed rule included amendments to 50 CFR parts 21 and 22 to update references to 50 CFR 21.12. We also proposed to add a definition for “humane and healthful conditions” to 50 CFR 21.6 and 22.6, remove the current regulatory authorization for the possession of live migratory birds, and make clarifying changes to Federal authorizations under the Airborne Hunting Act (AHA) regulations (50 CFR 19.21). The comment period closed July 31, 2023. This rulemaking improves organization and transparency of the regulations that set forth regulatory authorizations. We also include new regulatory authorizations, expanding the activities that do not require a permit both because they are well suited to straightforward eligibility criteria and because they are likely to have no or negligible impact on migratory bird populations and conservation. Finally, we modify the limitations on permits under the AHA regulations (50 CFR part 19) to support emerging uses of technology for bird conservation. We describe each of the regulations in more detail below in this preamble. <HD SOURCE="HD1">This Rulemaking</HD> In this rulemaking, the Service modifies five existing regulatory authorizations (prior to this rulemaking, located in 50 CFR 21.12(a)-(d) and indicated with “revised” in the preamble headings below) and redesignates them to their own sections. These modifications clarify language in the authorizations that was unclear, confusing, or created unintended restrictions or allowances. The Service also includes new regulatory authorizations for the following activities: salvage, activities by agency natural-resource employees, and exhibition of eagle specimens. The regulations are not authorizing a new activity. Instead, they are changing the authorization mechanism from a permit to a regulatory authorization. After decades of issuance, the Service has developed straightforward eligibility criteria for these permit types and they have had no or negligible impact on migratory bird populations or their conservation. Moreover, the permit conditions do not require case-by-case customization, making these permit activities appropriate for a regulatory authorization. <HD SOURCE="HD2">General Public—Birds in Buildings Authorization (revised)</HD> Current regulations include a regulatory authorization that allows any person (as defined in 50 CFR 10.12) to remove a migratory bird from the interior of a building or structure. We redesignate this regulation from § 21.12(d) to § 21.14 and make clarifying revisions. We expand the authorization from “residence or a commercial or government building” to “residence, business, or similar building or structure where people live or work.” We amend this text because it inadvertently excluded structures, such as belltowers, in which the presence of migratory birds is preventing the normal use of the structure's interior, such as by causing a health or safety risk to humans or birds or damage to property such as foodstuffs or products for sale, or where the bird may become injured because it is trapped. It is beneficial to birds and humans for us to allow removal of birds unintentionally trapped in the interior of any building or structure. This authorization would not apply to birds or nests on the exterior of a building or structure. Removal of in-use nests on the exterior of buildings or structures would continue to require a permit, such as in exterior eaves or bridges. We also include additional te ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 129k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━