Endangered and Threatened Species; Take of Anadromous Fish

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[RTID 0648-XE728]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Species; Take of Anadromous Fish</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of receipt of applications for two permit renewals, two permit modifications, and five new permits. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> Notice is hereby given that NMFS has received nine scientific research permit application requests relating to Pacific salmon, steelhead, green sturgeon, rockfish, and eulachon. The proposed research is intended to increase knowledge of species listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and to help guide management and conservation efforts. The applications may be viewed online at: <E T="03">https://apps.nmfs.noaa.gov/preview/preview_open_for_comment.cfm.</E> </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments or requests for a public hearing on the applications must be received at the appropriate address or fax number (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ) no later than 5 p.m. Pacific Standard Time on April 21, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> All written comments on the applications should be sent by email to <E T="03">nmfs.wcr-apps@noaa.gov.</E> Please include the permit number in the subject line of the email. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Rob Clapp, Portland, OR (ph.: 503-231-2314), Fax: 503-230-5441, email: <E T="03">Robert.Clapp@noaa.gov</E> ). Permit application instructions are available from the address above, or online at <E T="03">https://apps.nmfs.noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Species Covered in This Notice</HD> The following listed species are covered in this notice: Chinook salmon ( <E T="03">Oncorhynchus tshawytscha</E> ): Threatened Puget Sound (PS); threatened Snake River (SnkR) fall-run; threatened SnkR spring/summer-run (spr/sum); endangered Upper Columbia River (UCR) spring-run; threatened Upper Willamette River (UWR); threatened Lower Columbia River (LCR); threatened California Coastal (CC); threatened Central Valley spring-run (CVS). Steelhead ( <E T="03">O. mykiss</E> ): Threatened Middle Columbia River (MCR); threatened PS; threatened SnkR; threatened UCR; threatened UWR; threatened Northern California (NC); threatened LCR; threatened California Central Valley (CCV). Chum salmon ( <E T="03">O. keta</E> ): Threatened Hood Canal summer-run (HCS); threatened Columbia River (CR). Coho salmon ( <E T="03">O. kisutch</E> ): threatened Oregon Coast (OC); threatened LCR; southern Oregon/Northern California Coast (SONCC). Sockeye salmon ( <E T="03">O. nerka</E> ): Endangered SnkR; threatened Ozette Lake (OL). Eulachon ( <E T="03">Thaleichthys pacificus</E> ): Threatened southern Distinct Population Segment (SDPS). Green sturgeon ( <E T="03">Acipenser medirostris</E> ): Threatened SDPS. Rockfish ( <E T="03">Sebastes spp.</E> ): Endangered Puget Sound/Georgia Basin (PS/GB) boccacio ( <E T="03">Sebastes paucispinis</E> ); threatened PS/GB Yelloweye rockfish ( <E T="03">Sebastes ruberrimus</E> ). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Authority</HD> Scientific research permits are issued in accordance with section 10(a)(1)(A) of the ESA (16 U.S.C. 1531 <E T="03">et. seq</E> ) and regulations governing listed fish and wildlife permits (50 CFR 222-226). NMFS issues permits based on findings that such permits: (1) are applied for in good faith; (2) if granted and exercised, would not operate to the disadvantage of the listed species that are the subject of the permit; and (3) are consistent with the purposes and policy of section 2 of the ESA. The authority to take listed species is subject to conditions set forth in the permits. Anyone requesting a hearing on an application listed in this notice should set out the specific reasons why a hearing on that application would be appropriate (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ). Such hearings are held at the discretion of the Assistant Administrator for Fisheries, NMFS. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Applications Received</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Permit 1336-10M</HD> Port Blakely Tree Farms (PBTF) is seeking to modify a permit that would authorize them to continue taking juvenile OC and LCR coho salmon; LCR, UWR, and PS Chinook salmon; LCR, PS, and UWR steelhead; and CR chum salmon in order to evaluate factors limiting fish distribution and water quality in streams owned by PBTF. This activity will occur in the lower Columbia River and Puget Sound basins. PBTF is seeking to modify the permit by adding several locations where Port Blakely has recently acquired timberlands, and thus electrofishing may be required to determine stream typing before any forest management activities. Under the modification, they would also increase requested take for UWR Chinook salmon, UWR steelhead, LCR coho salmon, and OC coho salmon. Juveniles would be collected via backpack electrofishing, handled for identification, and released. The fish would be released back to their capture sites. The goal of the project is to determine the physical characteristics of uppermost fish habitats and quantify conditions that limit their distribution on lands owned in Washington and Oregon. The work is expected to benefit listed species by producing data to be used in conserving and restoring critical habitat. The researchers are not proposing to kill any of the listed fish being taken, but a small number may be killed as an inadvertent result of these activities. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Permit 18696-6R</HD> Idaho Power is seeking to renew a five-year permit that currently allows them to annually capture juvenile and adult SnkR fall-run Chinook salmon, SnkR spr/sum Chinook salmon, SnkR steelhead, and SnkR sockeye salmon while studying bull trout and juvenile white sturgeon in and near Lower Granite Reservoir on the Snake River. The action would continue to take place from the confluence of the Snake and Grande Ronde Rivers up to the first of the Hells Canyon Complex of dams. The researchers would use small-mesh gill nets, D-ring plankton nets, benthic otter trawls, and hook-and-line angling to capture the fish. The gill net fishing would take place at times (October and November) and in areas (the bottom of the reservoir) that have purposefully been chosen to have the least possible impact on listed fish. When the nets are pulled to the surface, listed species would immediately be released (including by cutting the net, if necessary) and allowed to return to the reservoir. D-ring fishing would take place in June and July, but the same restrictions (immediately releasing listed fish, etc.) would still apply. The same is true for the otter trawls that would take place solely in July and the angling that would be performed from December-March. The research targets species that are not listed, but it would benefit listed salmonids by generating information about the habitat conditions in the Snake River and by helping managers develop conservation plans for all the species that inhabit the area. The researchers are not proposing to kill any of the fish they capture, but a small number of individuals may be killed as an inadvertent result of the activities. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Permit 20047-3R</HD> The University of Washington is seeking to renew a permit that would authorize them to continue to take annually juvenile PS Chinook salmon, PS steelhead, PS/GB DPS bocaccio, PS/GB DPS yelloweye rockfish, HCS chum salmon, and adult SDPS eulachon in order to study the fish communities associated with tidal flats (with and without seagrass) in Puget Sound and coastal Washington. Juvenile salmon, steelhead, rockfish, and adult eulachon would be collected via beach seine, handled (weighed, measured, and checked for marks or tags), and released. This study would fill current information gaps on how habitat structure impacts higher trophic levels in nearshore habitats in the Pacific Northwest. It would benefit ESA-listed salmon and steelhead recovery by reducing the uncertainty around current ecosystem linkages that are used to select habitat sites to preserve and restore. The researchers are not proposing to kill any of the listed fish being captured, but a small number of fish may be killed as an inadvertent result of these activities. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Permit 28047-2M</HD> The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) is seeking to modify a five-year permit that currently allows them allow them to take juvenile LCR, UWR, PS, and CC Chinook salmon; CR and HCS chum salmon; LCR, PS, UWR, and NC steelhead; and LCR, OC, and SONCC coho. The fish are taken during efforts to determine the uppermost ranges of several species of fish in more than 20 subbasins in western Oregon and Washington and northern California. The USFWS is seeking to modify the permit by adding several basins, largely in eastern Oregon, and juveniles from several species: UCR chinook and steelhead, SnkR spr/sum and fall Chinook and steelhead, and MCR steelhead. Under the modification, they would also substantially reduce the amount of take they are permitted in western Oregon and Washington and would take no fish in California. The researchers would continue to use backpack electrofishing units to capture the fish. Once captured, all listed salmonids would simply be identified and immediately released. In all cases, the researchers would be operating near what is already considered to be the upper limit of salmonid trout distribution, so they are unlikely to encounter many listed fish in any case. Regardless, the researchers are not proposing to kill any of the listed fish being captured, but a small num ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 18k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━