Take of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to Rocky Intertidal Monitoring Surveys Along the Oregon and California Coasts

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 217</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 250317-0040]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BN36</RIN> <SUBJECT>Take of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to Rocky Intertidal Monitoring Surveys Along the Oregon and California Coasts</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS has received a request from University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) for Incidental Take Regulations (ITR) and an associated Letter of Authorization (LOA) pursuant to the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). The requested regulations would govern the authorization of take of marine mammals over 5 years (2025-2030) incidental to the Multi-Agency Rocky Intertidal Network (MARINe) rocky intertidal monitoring surveys along the Oregon and California coasts. NMFS requests public comments on this proposed rule. NMFS will consider public comments prior to making any final decision on the promulgation of the requested ITR and issuance of the LOA. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and information must be received no later than April 21, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> A plain language summary of this proposed rule is available at: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/NOAA-NMFS-2024-0144.</E> • <E T="03">Electronic submissions:</E> Submit all electronic public comments via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. Go to: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and enter NOAA-NMFS-2024-0144 in the Search box ( <E T="03">note:</E> copying and pasting the FDMS Docket Number directly from this document may not yield search results). Click on the “Comment” icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach your comments. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> Comments sent by any other method, to any other address or individual, or received after the end of the comment period, may not be considered by NMFS. All comments received are a part of the public record and will generally be posted for public viewing at: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> without change. All personal identifying information ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> name, address), confidential business information, or otherwise sensitive information submitted voluntarily by the sender will be publicly accessible. NMFS will accept anonymous comments (enter “N/A” in the required fields if you wish to remain anonymous). A copy of UCSC/MARINe's complete submitted application (Application), any supporting documents, as well as a list of the references cited in this document, may be obtained online at: <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/action/incidental-take-authorization-university-california-santa-cruzs-rocky-intertidal-monitoring.</E> In case of problems accessing these documents, please call the contact listed below (see <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> ). <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jennifer Gatzke, Office of Protected Resources, NMFS, (301) 427-8401. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Purpose and Need for Regulatory Action</HD> This proposed rule, if adopted, would establish a framework under the authority of the MMPA (16 U.S.C. 1361 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) to authorize, for a 5-year period (2025-2030), take of marine mammals incidental to the UCSC/MARINe's rocky intertidal research activities in Oregon and California. NMFS received an incidental take authorization (ITA) application from the UCSC/MARINe requesting 5-year regulations and an LOA to take four species of marine mammals by Level B harassment (Application). Take of harbor seal ( <E T="03">Phoca vitulina richardii</E> ), Steller sea lion ( <E T="03">Eumetopias jubatus</E> ), northern elephant seal ( <E T="03">Mirounga angustirostris</E> ), and California sea lion ( <E T="03">Zalophus californianus</E> ) would occur by Level B harassment only, incidental to visual and auditory disturbance of pinnipeds occurring near research sites. No mortality or serious injury is anticipated or proposed for authorization. Please see the Estimated Take of Marine Mammals section below for definitions of harassment. A previous incidental take authorization was issued in association with this ongoing, long-term project. That authorization was issued to the UCSC Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (referred to as UCSC/PISCO). Additional information about that action can be found at: <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/action/incidental-take-authorization-university-california-santa-cruz-rocky-intertidal-monitoring-0.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Legal Authority for the Proposed Action</HD> The MMPA prohibits the “take” of marine mammals, with certain exceptions. Sections 101(a)(5)(A) and (D) of the MMPA (16 U.S.C. 1361 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) direct the Secretary of Commerce (as delegated to NMFS) to allow, upon request, the incidental, but not intentional, taking of small numbers of marine mammals by U.S. citizens who engage in a specified activity (other than commercial fishing) within a specified geographical region if certain findings are made, regulations are promulgated, and public notice and an opportunity for public comment are provided. Authorization for incidental takings shall be granted if NMFS finds that the taking will have a negligible impact on the species or stock(s) and will not have an unmitigable adverse impact on the availability of the species or stock(s) for taking for subsistence uses (where relevant). Further, NMFS must prescribe the permissible methods of taking and other “means of effecting the least practicable adverse impact” on the affected species or stocks and their habitat. NMFS will pay particular attention to (1) rookeries, mating grounds, and areas of similar significance, (2) the availability of the species or stocks for taking for certain subsistence uses (referred to as “mitigation”), and (3) the requirements pertaining to the mitigation, monitoring and reporting of the takings are set forth. The definitions of all applicable MMPA statutory terms cited above are included below. Section 101(a)(5)(A) of the MMPA and the implementing regulations at 50 CFR part 216, subpart I, provide the legal basis for proposing and, if appropriate, issuing 5-year regulations and an associated LOA. This proposed rule, if adopted, would establish required mitigation, monitoring, and reporting requirements for the UCSC/MARINe's activities. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Summary of Major Provisions Within the Proposed Rule</HD> The following is a summary of the major provisions of this proposed rule regarding UCSC/MARINe's research activities. These provisions include measures requiring: • Mitigation to minimize impact to pinnipeds and avoid disruption to dependent pups including several measures to approach haulouts cautiously to minimize disturbance, especially when pups are present; and • Monitoring of the research areas to detect the presence of marine mammals before initiating surveys. <HD SOURCE="HD1">National Environmental Policy Act</HD> To comply with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) (42 U.S.C. 4321 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) and NOAA Administrative Order (NAO) 216-6A, NMFS must evaluate the proposed action ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> promulgation of regulations and subsequent issuance of a 5-year LOA) and alternatives with respect to potential impacts on the human environment. This action is consistent with categories of activities identified in Categorical Exclusion B4 (incidental harassment authorizations (IHAs) with no anticipated serious injury or mortality) of the Companion Manual for NAO 216-6A, which do not individually or cumulatively have the potential for significant impacts on the quality of the human environment and for which we have not identified any extraordinary circumstances that would preclude this categorical exclusion. Accordingly, NMFS has preliminarily determined that issuance of the proposed rule qualifies to be categorically excluded from further NEPA review. Information in the Application and this document collectively provide the environmental information related to proposed issuance of these regulations and subsequent incidental take authorization for public review and comment. We will review all comments submitted in response to this notice of proposed rulemaking prior to concluding our NEPA process and prior to making a final decision on the request for incidental take authorization. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Summary of UCSC/MARINe Request</HD> On September 6, 2024, NMFS received the initial Application requesting authorization for take of four species of marine mammals incidental to rocky intertidal monitoring surveys along the Oregon and California coasts. After the applicant responded to our questions and submitted a revised Application, NMFS determined the Application was adequate and complete on November 26, 2024. On December 5, 2024, we published a notice of receipt of the Application in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> , requesting comments and information related to the request for 30 days (89 FR 96645). We received no public comments. The UCSC/MARINe requests authorization to take the following four species of pinnipeds: harbor seal ( <E T="03">Phoca vitulina richardii</E> ), Steller sea lion ( <E T="03">Eumetopias jubatus</E> ), northern elephant seal ( <E T="03">Mirounga angustirostris</E> ), and California sea lion ( <E T="03">Zalophus californianus</E> ) by Level B harassment only. The proposed regulations would be valid for 5 y ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 87k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━