Migratory Bird Subsistence Harvest in Alaska

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 92</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-R7-MB-2024-0197; FXMB12610700000-201-FF07M01000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BG70</RIN> <SUBJECT>Migratory Bird Subsistence Harvest in Alaska</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), are proposing changes to the migratory bird subsistence harvest regulations in Alaska. Subsistence harvest regulations allow for the continuation of customary and traditional subsistence uses of migratory birds in Alaska and establish when and where the harvesting of certain migratory birds may occur within each subsistence region. Subsistence harvest regulations, including these proposed changes, were developed under a co-management process involving the Service, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and Alaska Native representatives. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> We will accept comments received or postmarked on or before February 20, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments by one of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov</E> . Follow the instructions for submitting comments to Docket No. FWS-R7-MB-2024-0197. • <E T="03">U.S. Mail:</E> Public Comments Processing, Attn: FWS-R7-MB-2024-0197, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, MS: JAO/3W, 5275 Leesburg Place, Falls Church, VA 22041-3803. 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 Public Comment Procedures, below, for more information). <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Wendy Loya, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1011 E Tudor Road, Mail Stop 201, Anchorage, AK 99503; (907) 227-2942. 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-R7-MB-2024-0197 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">Public Comment Procedures</HD> To ensure that any action resulting from this proposed rule will be as accurate and as effective as possible, we request that you send relevant information for our consideration. The comments that will be most useful and likely to influence our decisions are those that you support by quantitative information or studies and those that include citations to, and analyses of, the applicable laws and regulations. Please make your comments as specific as possible and explain the basis for them. In addition, please include sufficient information with your comments to allow us to authenticate any scientific or commercial data you include. You must submit your comments and materials concerning this proposed rule by one of the methods listed above in <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> . We will not accept comments sent by email or fax or to an address not listed in <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> . If you submit a comment via <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> your entire comment—including any personal identifying information, such as your address, telephone number, or email address—will be posted on the website. When you submit a comment, the system receives it immediately. However, the comment will not be publicly viewable until we post it, which might not occur until several days after submission. If you mail a hardcopy comment directly to us that includes personal information, you may request at the top of your document that we withhold this information from public review. However, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so. All comments and materials we receive will be available for public inspection via <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> . Search for FWS-R7-MB-2024-0197, which is the docket number for this rulemaking. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 (MBTA, 16 U.S.C. 703 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) was enacted to protect migratory birds and gives the Secretary of the Interior the authority to regulate the harvest of certain migratory birds. The law further authorizes the Secretary to issue regulations to ensure that the indigenous inhabitants of the State of Alaska may take certain migratory birds and collect their eggs for nutritional and other essential needs during seasons established by the Secretary to provide for the preservation and maintenance of these migratory birds (16 U.S.C. 712(1)). The take of migratory birds for subsistence uses in Alaska occurs primarily during the spring and summer, a timeframe not included in the fall and winter general migratory game bird hunting regulations for the United States. Regulations governing the subsistence harvest of migratory birds in Alaska are located in title 50 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) in part 92. These regulations allow for the continuation of customary and traditional subsistence uses of migratory birds and establish when and where the harvesting of certain birds in Alaska may occur within each subsistence region. The migratory bird subsistence harvest regulations are developed cooperatively. The Alaska Migratory Bird Co-Management Council (Council or AMBCC) consists of the Service, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG), and Alaska Native representatives. The Council's primary purpose is to develop recommendations pertaining to the subsistence harvest of migratory birds. The Council generally holds an annual spring meeting to review and recommend any regulatory changes for migratory bird subsistence harvest regulations in Alaska. The Council met May 22-23, 2024, and recommended changes to the subsistence harvest regulations intended to take effect beginning with the 2025 harvest season. The Council's recommendations were presented to the Pacific Flyway Council for their review and comment and subsequent submission to the Service Regulations Committee (SRC) for consideration at the SRC meeting on November 19, 2024. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Proposed Revisions to the Regulations</HD> Under the collaborative process described above, this document proposes the following revisions to the regulations for the taking of certain migratory birds for subsistence uses in Alaska during the spring and summer. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Proposed Revision to Subpart A</HD> In 50 CFR part 92, subpart A (general provisions), we propose to correct a reference to the United States Code (U.S. Code). The current definition for <E T="03">Alaska Native</E> in § 92.4 incorrectly references 16 U.S.C. 1602(b), which refers to section 3(b) of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act is found in title 43 not title 16 of the U.S. Code. Therefore, the definition needs to be corrected to reference 43 U.S.C. 1602(b). <HD SOURCE="HD2">Proposed Revisions to Subpart C</HD> In 50 CFR part 92, subpart C (general regulations governing subsistence harvest), we propose several changes to clarify the language regarding regional species closures, remove a species from the list of subsistence migratory bird species, and update the common and or scientific names of three species. First, we propose revisions to clarify that the list of species open to subsistence harvest in § 92.22 may have additional region-specific harvest restrictions that do not appear in the list of subsistence migratory bird species. The language in the introductory paragraph in § 92.22 states that the only exceptions to the species open to harvest is a regional closure in Southeast Alaska for the harvest of all migratory bird species except glaucous-winged gulls for egg harvesting only. While this provision was accurate at the time the regulation was initially promulgated, current regulations include other regional species-specific harvest restrictions, some of which are included in the statewide list of subsistence migratory bird species at § 92.22. For example, for tundra swans, the regulation at § 92.22(a)(7) states that these birds and their eggs may be harvested except in Units 9(D) and 10. However, some regions in Alaska have species-specific harvest restrictions that are not listed in the statewide list of subsistence migratory bird species and are found only in § 92.31 (region-specific regulations). For example, in the Gulf of Alaska region's Prince William Sound Area East (§ 92.31(j)(2)(iii)), most non-waterfowl species are closed to harvest, but these restrictions can be found only in the region-specific regulations. Given this ambiguity, we propose to revise the language in the introductory paragraph of § 92.22 to clarify that regional species-specific harvest restrictions may exist in the region-specific regulations. Second, we propose revisions to the list of subsistence migratory bird species in § 92.22 to reflect the Council's recommendation to close emperor goose harvest statewide. In 2016, the Council adopted an Emperor Goose Management Plan (Plan) to guide regulations for a spring-summer subsistence harvest of emperor geese and their eggs, which were opened to legal harvest in spring 2017. The Plan was developed in conjunction with the revised Pacific Flyway Council Management Plan for Emperor Geese (2016) that prescribes recommendations for the fall-winter hunting regulations. The two management plans complement each other and use the same population assessment methods, ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 35k characters. 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