Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Endangered Species Status for Big Red Sage

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 17</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-R2-ES-2024-0083; FXES1111090FEDR-256-FF09E21000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BG16</RIN> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Endangered Species Status for Big Red Sage</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 big red sage ( <E T="03">Salvia pentstemonoides</E> ), a plant species from central Texas, as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act). This determination also serves as our 12-month finding on a petition to list the big red sage. After a review of the best available scientific and commercial information, we find that listing the species is warranted. If we finalize this rule as proposed, it would add this species to the List of Endangered and Threatened Plants and extend the Act's protections to the species. We have determined that designating critical habitat for the big red sage is not prudent. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> We will accept comments received or postmarked on or before March 24, 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 a public hearing, in writing, at the address shown in <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> by March 7, 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-R2-ES-2024-0083, 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-R2-ES-2024-0083, 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/office/austin-ecological-services,</E> at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> at Docket No. FWS-R2-ES-2024-0083, or both. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Karen Myers, Field Supervisor, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Austin Ecological Services Field Office, 1505 Ferguson Lane, Austin, TX 78754; telephone 512-937-7371. 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-R2-ES-2024-0083 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> Under the Act (16 U.S.C. 1531 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ), 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 big red sage meets the Act's definition of an endangered species; therefore, we are proposing to list it as such. 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 big red sage as an endangered species under the Act. <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 big red sage is endangered due to the following threats: herbivory (Factor C), collection and inappropriate propagation (Factor B), land use changes (Factor A), and effects from climate change such as flash floods and erosion (Factor E). Section 4(a)(3) of the Act requires the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary), to the maximum extent prudent and determinable, to designate critical habitat concurrent with listing. We have determined that designating critical habitat for big red sage is not prudent because one of the main drivers of the species' status is direct mortality and loss of genetic integrity resulting from the collection of seeds and entire plants from wild populations (Factor B). The threat of collection potentially imperils all populations whose geographic locations are publicized and accessible to the public. Since we have determined that the species is threatened by taking or other human activity and identification of critical habitat can be expected to increase the degree of such threat to the species, we determine that designation of critical habitat is not prudent for the species. <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 the species, 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 this species; (d) Historical and current population levels, and current and projected trends; and (e) Past and ongoing conservation measures for the species, its habitat, or both. (2) Threats and conservation actions affecting the species, including: (a) Factors that may be affecting the continued existence of the species, which may include habitat modification or destruction, overutilization, disease, predation, the inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms, or other natural or manmade factors; (b) Biological, commercial trade, or other relevant data concerning any threats (or lack thereof) to this species; and (c) Existing regulations or conservation actions that may be addressing threats to this species. (3) Additional information concerning the historical and current status of this species. (4) Information regarding our determination that designating critical habitat for the big red sage is not prudent. Please include sufficient information with your submission (such as scientific journal articles or other publications) to allow us to verify any scientific or commercial information you include. Please note that submissions merely stating support for, or opposition to, the action under consideration without providing supporting information, although noted, do not provide substantial information necessary to support a determination. Section 4(b)(1)(A) of the Act directs that determinations as to whether any species is an endangered or a threatened species must be made solely on the basis of the best scientific and commercial data available, and section 4(b)(2) of the Act directs that the Secretary shall designate critical habitat on the basis of the best scientific data available. You may submit your comments and materials concerning this proposed rule by one of the methods listed in <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> . We request that you send comments only by the methods described in <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> . If you submit information via <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> your entire submission—including any personal identifying information—will be posted on the website. If your submission is made via a hardcopy that includes personal identifying 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. We will post all hardcopy submissions on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Comments and materials we receive, as well as supporting documentat ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 93k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━