Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Threatened Status for the Florida Manatee and Endangered Status for the Antillean Manatee

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 17</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-R4-ES-2024-0050; FXES1111090FEDR-256-FF09E21000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BH60</RIN> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Threatened Status for the Florida Manatee and Endangered Status for the Antillean Manatee</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), propose to list the two subspecies of the West Indian manatee, the Florida manatee ( <E T="03">Trichechus manatus latirostris</E> ) and the Antillean manatee ( <E T="03">Trichechus manatus manatus</E> ), under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act). We have conducted status reviews for the two subspecies, and, as a result, we are proposing to list the Florida manatee as a threatened species with protective regulations under section 4(d) of the Act (“4(d) rule”), and the Antillean manatee as an endangered species, under the Act. These two listings would replace the current threatened species listing of the West Indian manatee ( <E T="03">Trichechus manatus</E> ). This determination also serves as our 12-month findings on two petitions and as our completed 5-year review of the West Indian manatee. If we finalize this rule as proposed, it would remove the West Indian manatee from the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife (List), add the Florida manatee and Antillean manatee to the List, and extend the Act's protections to the Florida manatee and Antillean manatee. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> We will accept comments received or postmarked on or before March 17, 2025. Comments submitted electronically using the Federal eRulemaking Portal (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> , below) must be received by 11:59 p.m. eastern time on the closing date. We must receive requests for an additional public hearing, in writing, at the address shown in <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> by February 28, 2025. <E T="03">Public informational meeting and public hearing:</E> On February 26, 2025, we will hold a public informational meeting followed by a public hearing from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., Eastern-Standard time (6 p.m. to 8 p.m., Atlantic-Standard time). For more information, see <E T="03">Public Hearing,</E> below. </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-R4-ES-2024-0050, which is the docket number for this rulemaking. Then, click on the Search button. On the resulting page, in the panel on the left side of the screen, under the Document Type heading, check the Proposed Rule box to locate this document. 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-R4-ES-2024-0050, 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 Information Requested, below, for more information). <E T="03">Availability of supporting materials:</E> Supporting materials, such as the species status assessment report, are available on the Service's website at <E T="03">https://www.fws.gov/species/manatee-trichechus-manatus</E> , at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> at Docket No. FWS-R4-ES-2024-0050, or both. <E T="03">Public hearing:</E> We will hold a virtual public informational meeting followed by a public hearing on this proposed rule using the Zoom online video platform and teleconference. For more information, see <E T="03">Public Hearing,</E> below. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Gian Basili, Deputy State Supervisor, Florida Ecological Services Office, 7915 Baymeadows Way, Suite 200, Jacksonville, FL 32256-7517; telephone 904-731-3079; or Lourdes Mena, Field Supervisor, Caribbean Ecological Services Field Office, P.O. Box 491, Boqueron, PR 00622; telephone 352-749-2462. 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-R4-ES-2024-0050 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> <E T="03">Why we need to publish a rule.</E> The Act (16 U.S.C. 1531 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) defines the term “species” as including any subspecies of fish or wildlife or plants, and any distinct population segment of any species of vertebrate fish or wildlife which interbreeds when mature. Under the Act, a species warrants listing if it meets the definition of an endangered species (in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range) or a threatened species (likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range). If we determine that a species warrants listing, we must list the species promptly and designate the species' critical habitat to the maximum extent prudent and determinable. We have determined that the Florida manatee meets the Act's definition of a threatened species, and the Antillean manatee meets the Act's definition of an endangered species; therefore, we are proposing to list them as such. We proposed to revise and/or designate critical habitat for the Florida manatee and Antillean manatee in a recent <E T="04">Federal Register</E> publication (89 FR 78134). Listing a species as an endangered or threatened species can be completed only by issuing a rule through the Administrative Procedure Act rulemaking process (5 U.S.C. 551 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). <E T="03">What this document does.</E> We propose to list the two accepted subspecies of the West Indian manatee, the Florida manatee ( <E T="03">Trichechus manatus latirostris</E> ) and the Antillean manatee ( <E T="03">Trichechus manatus manatus</E> ), under the Act. We would list the Florida manatee as a threatened species covered by the “blanket” protective regulation at 50 CFR 17.31(a) (“blanket 4(d) rule”), and the Antillean manatee as an endangered species. These two separate listings would replace the current threatened species listing of the West Indian manatee ( <E T="03">Trichechus manatus</E> ). Therefore, if we finalize this action as proposed, we would list both of the accepted subspecies of the West Indian manatee, and therefore all of <E T="03">Trichechus manatus,</E> but with a different listing status for each subspecies (threatened species status for the Florida manatee with the blanket 4(d) rule, and endangered species status for the Antillean manatee). <E T="03">The basis for our action.</E> Under the Act, we may determine that a species is an endangered or threatened species because of any of five factors: (A) The present or threatened destruction, modification, or curtailment of its habitat or range; (B) overutilization for commercial, recreational, scientific, or educational purposes; (C) disease or predation; (D) the inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms; or (E) other natural or manmade factors affecting its continued existence. We have determined that the Florida manatee is threatened throughout its range due to the following primary threats: watercraft collisions, habitat loss (including seagrass loss) and modification from coastal development, unusual mortality events, natural processes (including cold weather events and harmful algal blooms), human interactions, loss of warm-water refugia, and climate change. We have also determined that the Antillean manatee is endangered throughout its range due to the following primary threats: watercraft collisions, habitat loss (including seagrass loss) and modification from coastal development, natural processes like harmful algal blooms, human interactions, poaching, low genetic diversity, and climate change. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Information Requested</HD> We intend that any final action resulting from this proposed rule will be based on the best scientific and commercial data available and be as accurate and as effective as possible. Therefore, we request comments or information from other governmental agencies, Native American Tribes, the scientific community, industry, or any other interested parties concerning this proposed rule. We particularly seek comments concerning: (1) The species' biology, range, and population trends, including: (a) Biological or ecological requirements of either subspecies, including habitat requirements for feeding, breeding, and sheltering; (b) Genetics and taxonomy; (c) Historical and current range, including distribution patterns and the locations of any additional populations of either subspecies; (d) Historical and current population levels, and current and projected trends; and (e) Past and ongoing conservation measures for either subspecies, their habitats, or both. (2) Threats and conservation actions affecting either subspecies, including: (a) Factors that may be affecting the continued existence of either subspecies, which may include habitat modificat ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 198k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━