Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Removal of Gila Chub From the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 17</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-R2-ES-2022-0001; FXES1113090FEDR-256-FF09E22000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BG36</RIN> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Removal of Gila Chub From the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), propose to remove the Gila chub ( <E T="03">Gila intermedia</E> ) from the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife. Our review indicates that, based on the best scientific and commercial data available, the Gila chub is not a valid taxonomic entity and does not meet the definition of a species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act). Accordingly, we propose to delist the Gila chub. If we finalize this rule as proposed, the prohibitions and conservation measures provided by the Act, particularly through sections 7 and 9, would no longer apply to the Gila chub. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> We will accept comments received or postmarked on or before August 18, 2025. Comments submitted electronically using the Federal eRulemaking Portal (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> , below) must be received by 11:59 p.m. eastern time on the closing date. We must receive requests for public hearings, in writing, at the address shown in <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> by August 1, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">Comment submission:</E> You may submit comments by one of the following methods: (1) <E T="03">Electronically:</E> Go to the Federal eRulemaking Portal: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> In the Search box, enter FWS-R2-ES-2022-0001, which is the docket number for this rulemaking. Then, click on the Search button. On the resulting page, in the Search 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.” (2) <E T="03">By hard copy:</E> Submit by U.S. mail to: Public Comments Processing, Attn: FWS-R2-ES-2022-0001, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, MS: PRB/3W, 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041-3803. We request that you send comments only by the methods described above. 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 Information Requested, below, for more information). <E T="03">Availability of supporting materials:</E> This proposed rule and supporting documents, such as the species status assessment (SSA) report, the SSA addendum, and comments from peer review, are available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FWS-R2-ES-2022-0001. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Heather Whitlaw, Field Supervisor, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Arizona Ecological Services Field Office, 9828 North 31st Avenue Suite C3, Phoenix, AZ 85051-2517; telephone 602-242-0210. 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. Please see Docket No. FWS-R2-ES-2022-0001 on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> for a document that summarizes this proposed rule. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Information Requested</HD> We intend that any final action resulting from this proposed rule will be based on the best scientific and commercial data available and be as accurate and as effective as possible. Therefore, we request comments or information from other concerned governmental agencies, Native American Tribes, the scientific community, industry, or any other interested parties concerning this proposed rule. We particularly seek comments concerning: (1) Reasons we should or should not remove the Gila chub from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife; and (2) Relevant data concerning the taxonomy of the Gila chub, particularly genetic relationships to other members of the genus <E T="03">Gila</E> that occur in the Colorado River basin. Please include sufficient information with your submission (such as scientific journal articles or other publications) to allow us to verify any scientific or commercial information you include. Please note that submissions merely stating support for, or opposition to, the action under consideration without providing supporting information, although noted, do not provide substantial information necessary to support a determination. Section 4(b)(1)(A) of the Act (16 U.S.C. 1533(b)(1)(A)) directs that determinations as to whether any species is an endangered species or a threatened species must be made solely on the basis of the best scientific and commercial data available. You may submit your comments and materials concerning this proposed rule by one of the methods listed in <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> . We request that you send comments only by the methods described in <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> . If you submit information via <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> your entire submission—including any personal identifying information—will be posted on the website. If your submission is made via a hardcopy that includes personal identifying information, you may request at the top of your document that we withhold this information from public review. However, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so. We will post all hardcopy submissions on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</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> Our final determination may differ from this proposal because we will consider all comments we receive during the comment period as well as any information that may become available after this proposal. For example, based on the new information we receive (and if relevant, any comments on that new information), we may conclude that the species should remain listed as endangered, or we may conclude that the species should be reclassified from endangered to threatened. We will clearly explain our rationale and the basis for our final decision, including why we made changes, if any, that differ from this proposal. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Public Hearing</HD> Section 4(b)(5) of the Act provides for a public hearing on this proposal, if requested. Requests must be received by the date specified in <E T="02">DATES</E> . Such requests must be sent to the address shown in <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> . We will schedule a public hearing on this proposal, if requested, and announce the date, time, and place of the hearing, as well as how to obtain reasonable accommodations, in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> and local newspapers at least 15 days before the hearing. We may hold the public hearing in person or virtually via webinar. We will announce any public hearing on our website, in addition to the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . The use of these virtual public hearings is consistent with our regulation at 50 CFR 424.16(c)(3). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Peer Review</HD> A species status assessment (SSA) team prepared an addendum to the SSA report for the Lower Colorado River roundtail chub ( <E T="03">Gila robusta</E> ) Distinct Population Segment (DPS) (Service 2022, entire) that summarizes information on the taxonomic status of the Gila chub (Service 2024, entire). The SSA team was composed of Service biologists, in consultation with other species experts. The SSA addendum represents a compilation of the best scientific and commercial data available concerning the taxonomic status of the Gila chub. In accordance with our joint policy on peer review published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on July 1, 1994 (59 FR 34270), and our August 22, 2016, memorandum updating and clarifying the role of peer review of listing and recovery actions under the Act ( <E T="03">https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/documents/peer-review-policy-directors-memo-2016-08-22.pdf</E> ), we solicited independent scientific review of the information contained in the SSA addendum (Service 2024, entire). The Service sent the SSA addendum to three independent peer reviewers and received three responses. The peer reviews can be found at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> In preparing this proposed rule, we incorporated the results of these reviews, as appropriate, into the SSA addendum, which is the foundation for this proposed rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Summary of Peer Reviewer Comments</HD> As discussed above in Peer Review, we received comments from three peer reviewers on the draft SSA addendum. We reviewed all comments we received from the peer reviewers for substantive issues and new information regarding the information contained in the SSA addendum. All reviewers acknowledged the complexity and challenges associated with elucidating the taxonomy of the three <E T="03">Gila</E> species in the Lower Colorado River basin, which includes the Gila chub, roundtail chub, and headwater chub ( <E T="03">Gila nigra</E> ). None of the reviewers disagreed with our interpretation of the available information that the Gila and headwater chubs are not distinct species. They also did not provide new i ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 50k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━