Migratory Bird Hunting; Proposed 2025-26 Migratory Game Bird Hunting Regulations (Preliminary)

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 20</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-HQ-MB-2024-0127; FXMB1231099BPP0-245-FF09M32000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BH65</RIN> <SUBJECT>Migratory Bird Hunting; Proposed 2025-26 Migratory Game Bird Hunting Regulations (Preliminary)</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service or we) proposes to establish hunting regulations for certain migratory game birds for the 2025-26 hunting season. Through an annual rulemaking process, we prescribe outside limits (which we refer to as frameworks) within which States may select hunting seasons. This proposed rule provides the regulatory schedule, describes the proposed regulatory alternatives for the 2025-26 general duck seasons, and provides preliminary proposals that vary from the 2024-25 hunting season regulations. Migratory bird hunting seasons provide opportunities for recreation and sustenance; aid Federal, State, and Tribal governments in the management of migratory game birds; and permit harvests at levels compatible with migratory game bird population status and habitat conditions. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Comments:</E> You may comment on the general duck season regulatory alternatives, the process for authorizing annual hunting seasons, and other preliminary proposals for the 2025-26 season until February 20, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">Comments:</E> You may submit comments on the proposals by one of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the instructions for submitting comments on Docket No. FWS-HQ-MB-2024-0127. • <E T="03">U.S. mail:</E> Public Comments Processing, Attn: FWS-HQ-MB-2024-0127; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; MS: PRB/3W; 5275 Leesburg Pike; Falls Church, VA 22041-3803. We will not accept emailed or faxed comments. We will post all comments on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> This generally means that your entire submission—including any personal identifying information—will be posted on the website. See Public Comments, below, for more information. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jerome Ford, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior, (703) 358-2606; <E T="03">jerome_ford@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. For a summary of the proposed rule, please see the “rule summary document” in docket FWS-HQ-MB-2024-0127 on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Process for Establishing Annual Migratory Game Bird Hunting Regulations</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Background</HD> Migratory game birds are those bird species so designated in conventions between the United States and several foreign nations for the protection and management of these birds. Under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA; 16 U.S.C. 703-712), the Secretary of the Interior is authorized to determine when “hunting, taking, capture, killing, possession, sale, purchase, shipment, transportation, carriage, or export of any such bird, or any part, nest, or egg” of migratory game birds can take place, and to adopt regulations for this purpose (16 U.S.C. 704(a)). These regulations are written after giving due regard to “the zones of temperature and to the distribution, abundance, economic value, breeding habits, and times and lines of migratory flight of such birds” (16 U.S.C. 704(a)) and are updated annually. This responsibility has been delegated to the Service as the lead Federal agency for managing and conserving migratory birds in the United States. However, migratory bird management is a cooperative effort of Federal, State, and Tribal governments. The Service annually develops migratory game bird hunting regulations by establishing the frameworks, or outside limits, for season dates, season lengths, shooting hours, bag and possession limits, and areas where migratory game bird hunting may occur. These frameworks are necessary to allow harvest at levels compatible with migratory game bird population status and habitat conditions. After the frameworks are established, States may select migratory game bird hunting seasons within the frameworks. States may always be more conservative in their selections than the frameworks, but never more liberal. The annual process of developing migratory game bird hunting regulations concludes when we establish the State season selections as Federal regulations under 50 CFR part 20, subpart K. Acknowledging regional differences in hunting conditions, the Service has administratively divided the United States into four Flyways for the primary purpose of managing migratory game birds. Each Flyway (Atlantic, Mississippi, Central, and Pacific) has a Flyway Council, a formal organization generally composed of one member from each State within the Flyway, as well as Provinces in Canada that share migratory bird populations with the Flyway. The Flyway Councils, established through the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, also assist in researching and providing migratory game bird management information for Federal, State, Tribal, and Provincial governments, as well as private conservation entities and the general public. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Overview of the Rulemaking Process</HD> The process for adopting migratory game bird hunting regulations, which are set forth at 50 CFR part 20, is constrained by three primary factors. Legal and administrative considerations dictate how long the rulemaking process will last. Most importantly, however, the biological cycle of migratory game birds controls the timing of data-gathering activities and thus the dates on which these results are available for consideration and deliberation. For the regulatory cycle, Service biologists gather, analyze, and interpret biological survey data and provide this information to all those involved in the process through a series of published status reports and presentations to Flyway Councils and other interested parties. Because the Service is required to take abundance of migratory game birds and other factors into consideration, the Service undertakes a number of surveys throughout the year in conjunction with Service Regional Offices, the Canadian Wildlife Service, and State and Provincial wildlife-management agencies. To determine the appropriate frameworks for each species, we consider factors such as population size and trend, geographical distribution, annual breeding effort, condition of breeding and wintering habitat, number of hunters, and anticipated harvest. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Service Migratory Bird Regulations Committee Meetings</HD> The Service Migratory Bird Regulations Committee (SRC) conducted an open meeting on May 17, 2024, to discuss preliminary issues for the 2025-26 regulations and will conduct another meeting in fall 2024 to review information on the current status of migratory game birds and develop recommendations for the 2025-26 hunting regulations for these species. In accordance with 50 CFR 20.153, these meetings are open to public observation, and observers may submit written comments to the Service on the matters discussed. These meetings are announced in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> or online on the Service's Migratory Bird Program website at <E T="03">https://www.fws.gov/event/us-fish-and-wildlife-service-migratory-bird-regulations-committee-meeting</E> at least 2 weeks before the meeting date. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Rulemaking Process for the 2025-26 Season</HD> This document is the first in a series of proposed and final rulemaking documents for migratory game bird hunting regulations. This document announces our intent to establish open hunting seasons for certain designated groups or species of migratory game birds for 2025-26 in the contiguous United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, under §§ 20.101 through 20.107, 20.109, and 20.110 of 50 CFR part 20, subpart K. For the 2025-26 migratory game bird hunting season, we will propose regulations for certain designated members of the avian families Anatidae (ducks, geese, and swans); Columbidae (doves and pigeons); Gruidae (cranes); Rallidae (rails, coots, and gallinules); and Scolopacidae (woodcock and snipe). The proposed regulatory alternatives for the 2025-26 duck hunting seasons are contained at the end of this document. We will publish additional proposals for public comment in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> as population, habitat, harvest, and other information become available. We annually publish definitions of flyways and management units and a description of the data used in and the factors affecting the regulatory process. This information will be included in proposed and final rules later in the regulations-development process (see 89 FR 41522, May 13, 2024, for the latest definitions and descriptions). Major steps in the 2025-26 regulatory cycle relating to open public meetings and <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notifications are illustrated in the diagram at the end of this proposed rule. All publication dates of <E T="04">Federal Register</E> documents are target dates. Our goal is to publish final regulatory alternatives for duck seasons and proposed season frameworks in winter 2024 and final ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 51k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━