Injurious Wildlife Species; Listing Salamanders Due to Risk of Salamander Chytrid Fungus

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 16</CFR> <RIN>RIN 1018-BA77</RIN> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-HQ-FAC-2015-0005; FXFR13360900000-245-FF09F14000]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Injurious Wildlife Species; Listing Salamanders Due to Risk of Salamander Chytrid Fungus</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Affirmation of interim rule as final; second interim rule and request for public comment. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is affirming as final the 2016 interim rule that added all species of salamanders from 20 genera to the list of injurious amphibians. Under the injurious wildlife prohibitions of the Lacey Act, this final rule prohibits the importation into the United States and shipment between the continental United States, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or any territory or possession of the United States of any live or dead specimen, including hybrids and parts, of those 20 genera of salamanders, except by permit for certain purposes or by Federal agencies solely for their own use. In addition to finalizing the listing of those 20 genera, we are publishing a new interim rule to add to the injurious amphibian list 16 genera that recent studies determined are also carriers of the fungus and to clarify some provisions from the final rule. This interim rule includes any live or dead specimen, hybrid, or parts of the 16 genera and opens a public comment period. We take these actions to protect U.S. ecosystems from the introduction, establishment, and spread of the lethal chytrid fungus <E T="03">Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans,</E> which infects and is carried by salamanders, and which is not yet known to be found in the United States. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Effective date:</E> The interim rule published at 81 FR 1534 on January 13, 2016, was effective January 28, 2016. This final rule affirming the January 13, 2016, interim rule and the interim rule set forth in this document are effective January 25, 2025. <E T="03">Comment submission:</E> Interested persons are invited to submit written comments on the issues raised in the second interim rule as described below under <E T="03">Information Requested</E> on or before March 11, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">Comment submission:</E> 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-2015-0005, which is the docket number for this action. 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-2015-0005, 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 <E T="03">Information Requested,</E> below, for more information). <E T="03">Supplementary materials:</E> Background documents related to this rulemaking action, including the final economic analysis for the affirmation of the 2016 interim rule, are available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> in Docket No. FWS-HQ-FAC-2015-0005. <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; 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. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Executive Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Current Rulemaking Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Final Rule to the 2016 Interim Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Summary of Comments Received on the 2016 Interim Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Affirmation of the 2016 Interim Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Required Determinations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Second Interim Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Species Information for Salamanders</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2"> B. Species Information for <E T="03">Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans</E> </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Population-Level and Ecosytem-Level Effects of Bsal</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Invasiveness of Salamanders and Bsal</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Pathway Analysis</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Risk Assessments of Bsal</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Factors That Contribute to Injuriousness of Salamanders</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Measures That Reduce or Remove Injuriousness of Salamanders</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. Summary and Conclusion for Interim Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">J. Required Determinations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">K. Information Requested</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> <E T="03">Why we need to publish a rule.</E> We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service or FWS), are charged with administering 18 U.S.C. 42(a), as amended (commonly known as the injurious wildlife provision of the Lacey Act). Under this authority, the Secretary of the Interior may list by regulation those wild mammals, wild birds, fish, mollusks, crustaceans, amphibians, reptiles, and the offspring or eggs of any of the foregoing that are injurious to human beings, to the interests of agriculture, horticulture, or forestry, or to the wildlife or wildlife resources of the United States. We have determined that salamanders that can carry the fungus <E T="03">Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans</E> (Bsal) are injurious to wildlife and wildlife resources of the United States. This determination was based on a review of the literature and an evaluation under the criteria for injuriousness by the Service. The purpose of listing these species as injurious wildlife is to prevent the introduction, establishment, and spread of Bsal in the wild in the United States. The fungus primarily affects salamanders, has lethal effects on many salamander species, and is not yet known to be found in ecosystems of the United States. <E T="03">What this document does.</E> This document serves two purposes: It finalizes a rulemaking action initiated with publication of an interim rule in 2016, and it promulgates a new and related interim rule. On January 13, 2016, we published an interim rule that amended our regulations pertaining to injurious wildlife (81 FR 1534). That interim rule (hereafter referred to as “the 2016 interim rule”) amended our regulations to add all species of salamanders from 20 genera, of which there were 201 species, to the list of injurious amphibians. Under the injurious wildlife prohibitions of the Lacey Act, the 2016 interim rule prohibited both importation into the United States and interstate transportation between States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or any territory or possession of the United States (the latter was clarified by a court decision in 2017) of any live or dead specimen, including parts, of these 20 genera of salamanders, except by permit for zoological, educational, medical, or scientific purposes (in accordance with permit conditions) or by Federal agencies without a permit solely for their own use. A second interim rule is now needed because of recent studies documenting additional genera that also share the same traits that make them injurious as carriers of Bsal. We are also revising some provisions from the 2016 interim rule in the final rule to make minor corrections to and improve clarity of the rule. <E T="03">The basis for our action.</E> Defensible scientific evidence indicates that we need to list a total of 36 genera of salamanders as injurious wildlife to protect U.S. ecosystems. Therefore, we hereby affirm the injurious wildlife listings in the 2016 interim rule of all species in the following 20 genera: <E T="03">Chioglossa, Cynops, Euproctus, Hydromantes, Hynobius, Ichthyosaura, Lissotriton, Neurergus, Notophthalmus, Onychodactylus, Paramesotriton, Plethodon, Pleurodeles, Salamandra, Salamandrella, Salamandrina, Siren, Taricha, Triturus,</E> and <E T="03">Tylototriton.</E> We also add new injurious wildlife listings of all species in the following 16 genera through the second interim rule: <E T="03">Ambystoma, Andrias, Aneides, Aquiloeurycea, Calotriton, Chiropterotriton, Cryptobranchus, Desmognathus, Ensatina, Eurycea, Laotriton, Ommatotriton, Pachytriton, Proteus, Pseudobranchus,</E> and <E T="03">Pseudotriton.</E> The United States has the greatest diversity of salamanders in the world, salamanders are a vital part of native ecosystems, and numerous salamander populations are at risk of endangerment from Bsal. A risk assessment conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) concluded that the potential for Bsal introduction into the United States is high, the United States has suitable conditions for Bsal survival, and the consequences of introduction into the United States are expected to be severe and occur across a wide geographic range within the United States. The most likely pathway of Bsal into the United States would be on t ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 391k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━