Migratory Bird Subsistence Harvest in Alaska

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 92</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-R7-MB-2024-0197; FXMB12310700000-256-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> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), are revising 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 the changes set forth in this document, 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> This rule is effective on April 2, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may inspect the comments received on the Migratory Bird Subsistence Harvest in Alaska proposed rule at the Federal eRulemaking Portal: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> in Docket No. FWS-R7-MB-2024-0197. <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. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <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 (AMBCC) consists of the Service, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG), and Alaska Native representatives. The AMBCC's primary purpose is to develop recommendations pertaining to the subsistence harvest of migratory birds. This rule incorporates changes to the subsistence harvest regulations that were recommended by the AMBCC in 2024 as described below. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments Received on the Proposed Rule</HD> Per the collaborative process described above, we published a proposed rule to update the regulations for the taking of migratory birds for subsistence uses in Alaska during the spring and summer (90 FR 7066; January 21, 2025). By the end of the comment period on the proposed rule, we received seven comments. Some of the comments pertained to issues that are outside the scope of this rulemaking action; we hereby respond to the relevant issues that were raised in the public input. We made no changes to the proposed rule as a result of the input we received via the public comments (see Final Regulations, below, for more information). <E T="03">Issue:</E> Two commenters believe that there should not be a legal subsistence harvest opportunity for migratory birds in Alaska. <E T="03">Response:</E> For millennia, indigenous inhabitants of Alaska have harvested migratory birds for subsistence purposes during the spring and summer months. The U.S. treaties with Canada and Mexico were amended for the express purpose of allowing subsistence harvest of migratory birds during these months. The MBTA allows for the lawful and sustainable harvest of migratory birds per annual hunting regulations. Spring-summer subsistence and fall-winter hunting regulations are reviewed each year, the impacts of which are monitored by annual population and harvest surveys. <E T="03">Issue:</E> One commenter expressed concern that the Service should not be funded to authorize this harvest of migratory birds. <E T="03">Response:</E> The MBTA allows the Secretary of the Interior to authorize the take, including subsistence harvest, of migratory birds if the Secretary determines the status of the birds is sufficient to allow such take. The Service, as the primary agency supporting this authority for the Secretary, promulgates regulations each year that allow the hunting of certain species of migratory game birds. This function is a basic and foundational responsibility of the Service. <E T="03">Issue:</E> One commenter recommended that the Alaska Native names of birds should be added to the bird species list in these regulations. <E T="03">Response:</E> Alaska has more than 20 distinct Native languages, so adding all languages to the bird species list in 50 CFR 92.22 would not be practical. The Service makes a concerted effort to include the Alaska Native names of birds in education and outreach materials, especially materials for species closed to harvest. <E T="03">Issue:</E> One commenter recommended that the Service should enforce laws and regulations surrounding illegal hunting and encourage permits/licenses for subsistence hunting. <E T="03">Response:</E> To decrease risk of illegal harvest of protected species, the Service relies on public education and outreach to describe species closed to harvest. Please see page 27 of Regulations for the 2024 Alaska Subsistence Spring/Summer Migratory Bird Harvest (available in the docket on <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> ) as an example of public outreach to protect threatened spectacled and Steller's eiders (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2024). A State hunting license and a State duck stamp are required for most hunters, if 18 years of age or older and hunting waterfowl, although a Federal duck stamp is not required (16 U.S.C. 718a(2)(D)). The Service also monitors and enforces hunting regulations through its Office of Law Enforcement. <E T="03">Issue:</E> Two commenters recommended keeping the harvest reporting requirements in the Kodiak Island Roaded Area (KIRA). <E T="03">Response:</E> Reporting requirements are not part of customary and traditional hunting practices, may be a barrier to indigenous participation, and are costly to administer. Harvest reporting requirements are not a requirement of the spring-summer subsistence harvest in Alaska (except in one harvest area: Prince William Sound Area East), and it would be inefficient and ineffective to continue to require it for the KIRA once the permit requirement is removed. A short-term permit and reporting requirement was instituted in the KIRA to measure the level of hunter participation during an experimental hunt from 2021 through 2024. The permit and reporting requirement was not intended to extend beyond the experimental hunt period, but instead was used to inform the decision on whether to make the KIRA open to harvest during the spring-summer period. The permit and reporting requirement demonstrated that both numbers of harvesters and birds/eggs harvested were low. Maintaining a reporting requirement when the permit is not required would be unnecessarily burdensome to hunters. <E T="03">Issue:</E> One commenter expressed concern over the availability of lead shot and believes that it should be removed from stores and its replacement with nontoxic shot should be funded by the government. <E T="03">Response:</E> The nationwide ban on the use of lead shot for hunting waterfowl occurred in 1991. The Service's Office of Law Enforcement and law enforcement officers of the National Wildlife Refuge System work with State law enforcement personnel to check waterfowl hunters during the Alaska spring-summer subsistence and fall-winter general seasons for use of nontoxic ammunition. The Service has also worked with vendors in rural Alaska to reduce lead shot availability and sales during the migratory bird hunting seasons. <E T="03">Issue:</E> Five commenters expressed general support of the process, compliance with Federal regulations, or analyses of effects of the harvest. <E T="03">Response:</E> The Service appreciates the commenters' general support of the process, compliance with Federal regulations, and analyses of effects of the Alaska subsistence spring-summer migratory bird harvest. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Final Regulations</HD> We are making no changes to the regulatory revisions proposed in our January 21, 2025, proposed rule (90 FR 7066) as a result of the input we received via the public comments. We are, however, making changes to the regulations at §§ 92.6 and 92.31 to make additional updates to species names. In § 92.6, we update the names for two birds that we overlooked in the list of bird species authorized for authentic Native articles of handicraft or clothing (double-crested cormorant and mew gull), and in § 92.31, we update one bird in the list of species open to harvest in the Gulf of Alaska region, Prince William Sound Area East (mew gull). Th ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 38k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━