Migratory Bird Hunting; Proposed 2025-26 Frameworks for Migratory Bird Hunting Regulations

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 20</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-HQ-MB-2024-0127; FXMB1231099BPP0-256-FF09M32000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BH65</RIN> <SUBJECT>Migratory Bird Hunting; Proposed 2025-26 Frameworks for Migratory Bird Hunting Regulations</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule; supplemental. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service or we) is proposing to establish the frameworks from which States may select season dates, limits, and other options for the 2025-26 migratory game bird hunting season. We annually prescribe outside limits (which we call frameworks) within which States may select hunting seasons. Frameworks specify the outside dates, season lengths, shooting hours, bag and possession limits, and areas where migratory game bird hunting may occur. These frameworks are necessary to allow State selections of seasons and limits and to allow harvest at levels compatible with migratory game bird population status and habitat conditions. Migratory game bird hunting seasons provide opportunities for recreation and sustenance and aid Federal, State, and Tribal governments in the management of migratory game birds. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> You must submit comments on the proposed migratory bird hunting frameworks by May 27, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">Comment submission:</E> You may submit comments on the proposals by one of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov.</E> In the Search box, enter FWS-HQ-MB-2024-0127, 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.” • <E T="03">U.S. Mail:</E> Public Comments Processing, Attn: FWS-HQ-MB-2024-0127; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, MS: JAO/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 we will post any personal information you provide us (see Public Comments, below, for more information). <E T="03">Document availability:</E> Comments and materials we receive, as well as supporting documentation we used in preparing this proposed rule, will be available for public inspection on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> or by appointment, during normal business hours, at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Division of Migratory Bird Management, 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, Virginia. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jerome Ford, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior, (703) 358-2606. 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 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> The process for promulgating annual regulations for the hunting of migratory game birds involves the publication of a series of proposed and final rulemaking documents. We provided a detailed overview of the current process in the August 3, 2017, <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (82 FR 36308). This proposed rule is the second in a series of proposed and final rules that establish regulations for the 2025-26 migratory game bird hunting season in title 50 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). On January 21, 2025, we published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (90 FR 7056) a proposal to amend 50 CFR part 20. The proposal provided a background and overview of the migratory bird hunting regulations process, and addressed the establishment of seasons, limits, and other regulations for hunting migratory game birds under §§ 20.101 through 20.107, 20.109, and 20.110 of subpart K. Major steps in the regulations development process for the 2025-26 hunting season relating to open public meetings and <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notifications were illustrated in the diagram at the end of the January 21, 2025, proposed rule. Further, in the January 21, 2025, proposed rule we explained that sections of subsequent documents outlining hunting frameworks and guidelines would be organized under numbered headings, which were set forth in that proposed rule (see 90 FR 7056). This document refers only to numbered items requiring attention and omits those items not requiring attention. Therefore, the numbered items are discontinuous, and the list appears incomplete. We provided the meeting dates and locations for the Service Regulations Committee (SRC) on our website at <E T="03">https://www.fws.gov/event/us-fish-and-wildlife-service-migratory-bird-regulations-committee-meeting</E> and Flyway Council meetings on Flyway calendars posted on our website at <E T="03">https://www.fws.gov/partner/migratory-bird-program-administrative-flyways.</E> The January 21, 2025, proposed rule provided detailed information on the proposed 2025-26 regulatory schedule. The SRC conducted an open meeting with the Flyway Council Consultants on May 17, 2024, to discuss preliminary issues for the 2025-26 regulations, and on November 19, 2024, to review information on the current status of migratory game birds and develop recommendations for the 2025-26 regulations for these species. This supplemental proposed rule provides the regulatory alternatives for the 2025-26 duck hunting season and provides proposed frameworks for the 2025-26 migratory bird hunting season. It will lead to final frameworks from which States may select season dates, shooting hours, areas, and limits. We have considered all pertinent comments received from the May and November SRC meetings. In addition, new proposals for certain regulations are provided for public comment. The comment period is specified above under <E T="02">DATES</E> . Our goal is to publish final regulatory frameworks for migratory game bird hunting in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> in spring 2025. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Population Status and Harvest</HD> Each year, we publish reports that provide detailed information on the status and harvest of certain migratory game bird species. These reports are available at the address indicated under <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> or from our website at <E T="03">https://www.fws.gov/library/collections/population-status, https://www.fws.gov/library/collections/migratory-bird-hunting-activity-and-harvest-reports,</E> and <E T="03">https://www.fws.gov/project/adaptive-harvest-management.</E> We used the following annual reports published in August 2024 in the development of these regulatory frameworks for the migratory bird hunting season: • Adaptive Harvest Management, 2025 Hunting Season; • American Woodcock Population Status, 2024; • Band-tailed Pigeon Population Status, 2024; • Migratory Bird Hunting Activity and Harvest During the 2022-23 and 2023-24 Hunting Seasons; • Mourning Dove Population Status, 2024; • Status and Harvests of Sandhill Cranes, Mid-continent, Rocky Mountain, Lower Colorado River Valley and Eastern Populations, 2024; and • Waterfowl Population Status, 2024. Our long-term objectives continue to include providing opportunities to harvest portions of certain migratory game bird populations and to limit harvests to levels compatible with each population's ability to maintain healthy, viable numbers. Migratory game bird hunting seasons provide opportunities for recreation and sustenance, and aid Federal, State, and Tribal governments in the management of migratory game birds. Having taken into account the zones of temperature and the distribution, abundance, economic value, breeding habits, and times and lines of flight of migratory birds, we conclude that the proposed hunting seasons provided for herein are compatible with the current status of migratory bird populations and long-term population goals. Additionally, we are obligated to, and do, give serious consideration to all information received during the public comment period. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Review of Public Comments and Flyway Council Recommendations</HD> The preliminary proposed rulemaking, which appeared in the January 21, 2025, <E T="04">Federal Register</E> , opened the public comment period for migratory game bird hunting regulations and described the proposed regulatory alternatives for the 2025-26 duck hunting season. We will summarize the comments received for the preliminary proposed and this proposed frameworks rule and publish responses to all pertinent written comments when we develop final frameworks for the 2025-26 season. Flyway recommendations are summarized below and numbered in the order set forth in the January 21, 2025, proposed rule (see 90 FR 7056). We received recommendations from all four Flyway Councils at the May and November SRC meetings; all recommendations are from the November meeting unless otherwise noted. Some recommendations supported continuation of last year's frameworks. Due to the comprehensive nature of the annual review of the frameworks performed by the Councils, support ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 242k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━