Injurious Wildlife Species; Listing Two Freshwater Mussel Genera and One Crayfish Species

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 16</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-HQ-FAC-2024-0060; FXFR13360900000-245-FF09F14000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BH15</RIN> <SUBJECT>Injurious Wildlife Species; Listing Two Freshwater Mussel Genera and One Crayfish Species</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) proposes to add all species of freshwater mussels from two genera, Asian pond mussels ( <E T="03">Sinanodonta</E> species) and golden mussels ( <E T="03">Limnoperna</E> species), to the list of injurious mollusks. Additionally, the Service proposes to add marbled crayfish ( <E T="03">Procambarus virginalis</E> ) to the list of injurious crustaceans. Listing these taxa as injurious will prohibit the importation of any live animal, larvae, viable egg, or hybrid of these taxa into the United States, except as specifically authorized. These listings would also prohibit shipment of any live animal, larvae, viable egg, or hybrid of these species between the continental United States, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or any territory or possession of the United States, except as specifically authorized. The action is necessary to protect wildlife and wildlife resources by preventing the introduction and subsequent establishment of these foreign aquatic invertebrates into ecosystems of the United States. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> We will accept comments received or postmarked on or before March 11, 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-HQ-FAC-2024-0060, which is the docket number for this proposed rule. 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-HQ-FAC-2024-0060, 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 one of the methods described above. We will post all comments on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> meaning that we will generally post any personal information you provide (see Public Comments, below, for more information). This proposed rule and all supporting documentation, including the environmental action statement and references cited in this proposed rule, are available on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> in Docket No. FWS-HQ-FAC-2024-0060. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Kristen Sommers, Injurious Wildlife Listing Coordinator, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Branch of Aquatic Invasive Species; MS: FAC, 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041-3803; by telephone at 571-329-2214. 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-HQ-FAC-2024-0060 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> The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) proposes to add the genus of Asian pond mussels ( <E T="03">Sinanodonta</E> ), the genus of golden mussels ( <E T="03">Limnoperna</E> ), and the marbled crayfish ( <E T="03">Procambarus virginalis</E> ) to the list of injurious wildlife in title 50 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) at § 16.13 (50 CFR 16.13). This action would prohibit these genera and species from being imported into the United States and shipped between the continental United States, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or any territory or possession of the United States, except as specifically authorized. The purpose of listing all species from two freshwater mussel genera and one crayfish species is to protect U.S. interests and natural resources by preventing introduction of these injurious aquatic invertebrates into ecosystems of the United States. The final rule may confirm individual, some, or all proposed species for listing as injurious. Based on current taxonomic classification, there are 26 species in the <E T="03">Sinanodonta</E> genus, 1 species in the <E T="03">Limnoperna</E> genus, and the marbled crayfish ( <E T="03">Procambarus virginalis</E> ) that we are proposing for listing as injurious under 18 U.S.C. 42(a)(1) (the injurious wildlife listing provision of the Lacey Act). These taxa share various generic biological traits of invasiveness, including early sexual maturity, high dispersal capability, large reproductive capacity, broad environmental tolerances (even for polluted and contaminated waters), and adaptability to scenarios associated with climate warming or other extreme weather events like drought. Both mussel genera ( <E T="03">Sinanodonta</E> and <E T="03">Limnoperna</E> ) are native to Asia. However, marbled crayfish have no native distribution because they originated in captivity in the 1990s, possibly through mutation of sexual reproduction genes. Since these foreign mussels and the crayfish do not presently occur in U.S. ecosystems, except for potentially one species of Asian pond mussel ( <E T="03">S. woodiana</E> ) in New Jersey, the goal is to preemptively list them as injurious before they can establish and harm U.S. interests. The primary pathways by which these species could enter the United States include commercial trade in live animal industries or transoceanic commercial shipping. Further, according to the Service's Law Enforcement Management Information System (LEMIS) records, these taxa are either not traded in the United States or are traded in quantities small enough that market impact of halting importation would be negligible. The need for this rulemaking action arose from the Service's concern that these foreign aquatic invertebrate species are injurious to the interests of agriculture (including aquaculture), water infrastructure investments (such as hydropower), or wildlife and wildlife resources of the United States. These determinations are based on factors that contribute to injuriousness compared with potential risk mitigation measures that may reduce or eliminate injuriousness. Asian pond mussels, golden mussels, and the marbled crayfish each have proven invasiveness outside their native ranges. Likelihood of establishment inferred from climate suitability modeling is high throughout the contiguous United States for all taxa, so they are likely to spread if introduced. These species all may harm native species, including federally endangered and threatened species, through competition for food and spatial resources. Because available control measures for these species in natural environments would also kill co-occurring native wildlife, control as an option to reduce injuriousness is not considered a practical risk mitigation measure. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Statutory Authority</HD> Under 18 U.S.C. 42(a)(1) (the injurious wildlife listing provision of the Lacey Act), the Secretary of the Department of the Interior may prescribe by regulation wild mammals, wild birds, fishes, mollusks, crustaceans, amphibians, reptiles, and the offspring or eggs therefrom that are injurious to human beings, to the interests of agriculture, horticulture, forestry, or to the wildlife or wildlife resources of the United States. The lists of injurious wildlife are found at 50 CFR 16.11-16.15. Importation into the United States or shipment between the enumerated jurisdictions in 18 U.S.C. 42(a)(1) of listed species is prohibited, except as approved by the Service under permitted terms and conditions for zoological, educational, medical, or scientific purposes found at 50 CFR 16.22 or for Federal agencies for their own use. This rule would not prohibit transport within States. Any regulations pertaining to the possession, transport, or use of these species within a particular State would remain the authority of that State. Further, rulemaking under this statute is governed by the Administrative Procedure Act (5 U.S.C. 551 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ), which specifies how Federal agencies develop and issue regulations. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Listing and Evaluation Process</HD> The Service must promulgate regulations in accordance with other statutory requirements, in addition to the Lacey Act. The Administrative Procedure Act (5 U.S.C. 551 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) governs the process for rulemaking. In keeping with the Administrative Procedure Act, we are publishing a proposed rule for public notice and comment. We also solicit peer review under Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidelines titled, “Final Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review” (OMB 2004). We also make available to the public an economic analysis (including analysis of potential effects on small businesses), if appropriate. This proposed rule is based on specific evaluation of taxa (classification-based groupings of life forms) of mollusks and crustaceans reported in the scientific literature as highly invasive and with the potential to be introduced through wildlife trade. We performed an evaluation using the Service's injurious wildlife evaluation criteria (see <E T="03">Lacey Act Evaluation Criteria,</E> below); we use these criteria to evaluate if a taxon qualifies ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 106k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━