Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; 12-Month Finding for the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem of the Grizzly Bear in the Lower-48 States

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 17</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-R6-ES-2022-0150; FF09E21000-256-FXES11130900000]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; 12-Month Finding for the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem of the Grizzly Bear in the Lower-48 States</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notification of finding. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), announce a 12-month finding on a petition to establish and delist a Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE) distinct population segment (DPS) of the grizzly bear ( <E T="03">Ursus arctos horribilis)</E> in the lower-48 States. After a thorough review of the best scientific and commercial data available, we find that grizzly bears in the petitioned DPS do not, on their own, represent a valid DPS. Thus, we find that the petitioned action to establish and delist an NCDE DPS is not warranted at this time. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The finding in this document was made on January 15, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The finding and the supporting information that we developed for this finding, including the species status assessment report and species assessment form, are available on the internet at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FWS-R6-ES-2022-0150. Please submit any new information, materials, comments, or questions concerning this finding to the appropriate person, as specified under <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> . <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Hilary Cooley, Grizzly Bear Recovery Coordinator, Grizzly Bear Recovery Office, telephone: 406-243-4903, email: <E T="03">hilary_cooley@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">Previous Federal Actions</HD> Under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (16 U.S.C. 1531 <E T="03">et seq.;</E> hereafter, “Act”), the grizzly bear ( <E T="03">Ursus arctos horribilis)</E> is currently listed as a threatened species in the lower-48 States (40 FR 31734, July 28, 1975). We detail the original rulemaking and our subsequent actions for the species in our species status assessment (SSA) report (Service 2024, pp. 74-76) and summarize the relevant actions for this finding below. On March 30, 2021, we completed a 5-year status review for the grizzly bear in the lower-48 States in which we concluded that the listed entity should retain its status as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (Act) (Service 2021, entire). On December 17, 2021, we received a petition from the State of Montana (petitioner) to revise the listed entity of grizzly bear under the Act. The petition requested that we: (1) establish a NCDE DPS; and (2) remove it from the List (“delist”), asserting that the NCDE DPS did not meet the definition of an endangered or threatened species. On February 6, 2023, we published a 90-day finding (88 FR 7658) that the petition contained substantial information indicating that establishing and delisting a NCDE DPS may be warranted. This document and our supporting species assessment form constitutes our 12-month finding on the December 17, 2021, petition to establish and delist a NCDE DPS of grizzly bear under the Act. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> Under section 4(b)(3)(B) of the Act (16 U.S.C. 1531 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ), we are required to make a finding, within 12 months after receiving any petition that we have determined contains substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted, as to whether the petitioned action is warranted, not warranted, or warranted but precluded by other pending proposals (known as a “12-month finding”). We must publish a notification of this 12-month finding in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . This document announces the not-warranted finding on the petition for the NCDE grizzly bear population in accordance with the regulations at 50 CFR 424.14(h)(2)(i). In this document, we have also elected to include a summary of the analysis on which this finding is based. This supporting information can be found on the internet at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FWS-R6-ES-2022-0150 (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> , above). We provide the full analysis, including our rationale and the data on which the finding is based, in the decisional file for the petition and our subsequent finding. The species assessment form contains an explanation of why we determined that grizzly bears in the petitioned DPS do not, on their own, represent a valid listable entity such that the petitioned actions are not warranted at this time. The following is a summary of the documents containing this full analysis. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Listable Entity Requirements</HD> Under the Act, the term “species” includes any subspecies of fish or wildlife or plants, and any distinct population segment of any vertebrate fish or wildlife which interbreeds when mature (16 U.S.C. 1532(16)). To interpret and implement the distinct population segment (DPS) provisions of the Act, the Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> the Policy Regarding the Recognition of Distinct Vertebrate Population Segments Under the Endangered Species Act on February 7, 1996 (61 FR 4722) (DPS Policy). Under the DPS Policy, we consider three elements to determine whether to classify a population of a vertebrate species as a DPS: (1) the discreteness of the population segment in relation to the remainder of the species to which it belongs; (2) the significance of the population segment to the species to which it belongs; and (3) the population segment's conservation status in relation to the Act's standard for listing, delisting, or reclassification. The Policy requires that a population segment meet both the discreteness and significance elements to be considered a valid DPS ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> a valid listable entity) and only then may we consider whether the DPS warrants listing under the Act. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Summary of Biological Information</HD> The grizzly bear is a large, long-lived mammal that occurs in a variety of habitat types in portions of Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Wyoming. Grizzly bears are light brown to nearly black and are so named for their “grizzled” coats with silver or golden tips. Grizzly bears in the NCDE population and the lower-48 States need access to large, intact blocks of land with limited human influence that provide cover, high-caloric foods, dens, and areas for dispersal. The specific quality and quantity of these resources influence the ability of individual grizzly bears to reproduce, grow, and survive at different life stages and for the NCDE population to be resilient or to withstand stochastic events (Service 2024, pp. 99-101). Our SSA report provides our full account of the life history, ecology, range, and historical and current distribution for the grizzly bear in the NCDE population and the lower-48 States (Service 2024, pp. 39-73). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Summary of Information From the Petition</HD> The petitioner requests that we establish a DPS for the NCDE grizzly bear population (petitioned DPS) that occurs entirely within the State of Montana. In their arguments to support delisting, the petitioner indicates that the NCDE grizzly bear population's range has expanded, including a four-fold increase in the occupied range since the time of listing in 1975. The species assessment form provides additional summary of the information presented in the petition, including a map of the petitioned DPS. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Summary of Finding</HD> In determining whether to recognize the petitioned DPS as a valid DPS ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> a listable entity under the Act), we must base our decision on the best scientific and commercial data available. Since the time of the original listing in 1975, the abundance, distribution, and dispersal of grizzly bears within and surrounding the NCDE has increased. New information supports the petitioner's claim that the NCDE population has increased in size and distribution, so much so that grizzly bears have dispersed and expanded their occupied range and verified outliers are occurring beyond the western and southern boundary of the petitioned DPS. From 2014 to 2022, estimated occupied range in the NCDE increased by 21 percent, averaging 5 percent every 2 years. As a result, the distance between the occupied range in the NCDE and that of other ecosystems has decreased and continues to shrink. Models indicate that the NCDE estimated occupied range overlaps with the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem (CYE), although no genetic or demographic connectivity has been documented. In addition, models indicate that the estimated occupied ranges of the NCDE and Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) populations are currently only 98 kilometers (61 miles) apart, within grizzly bear dispersal distance. The 2022 estimated occupied range of the NCDE population of grizzly bear extends beyond the western and southern boundaries of the petitioned DPS (Service 2024, figure 1). From 2020 to 2022, occupied range in the NCDE increased by 11 percent (Costello et al. 2023, p. 13). We expect this trend to increase ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 18k characters. 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