Marine Mammals; Incidental Take of Northern Sea Otters During Specified Activities; Seward, Sitka, and Kodiak, Alaska

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 18</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-R7-ES-2024-0195; FXES111607MRG01-245-FF07CAMM00]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BI08</RIN> <SUBJECT>Marine Mammals; Incidental Take of Northern Sea Otters During Specified Activities; Seward, Sitka, and Kodiak, Alaska</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notification of receipt of application; proposed rule; availability of draft environmental assessment; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in response to a request under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, as amended, from the U.S. Coast Guard, propose to issue regulations for the nonlethal, incidental, unintentional take by harassment of small numbers of Southcentral Alaska, Southeast Alaska, and Southwest Alaska stocks of northern sea otters ( <E T="03">Enhydra lutris kenyoni</E> ) during pile driving and marine construction activities in Seward, Sitka, and Kodiak, Alaska. Incidental take of northern sea otters may result from in-water noise generated during pile driving and marine construction activities occurring for a period up to 5 years. This proposed rule would authorize take by harassment only, and no lethal take would be authorized. If this rule is finalized, we will issue letters of authorization for the incidental take of northern sea otters, upon request, for specific activities in accordance with the final rule for a period up to 5 years. We request comments on these proposed regulations. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments on these proposed incidental take regulations and the accompanying draft environmental assessment will be accepted on or before July 23, 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. <E T="03">Information collection requirements:</E> If you wish to comment on the information collection requirements in this proposed rule, please note that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is required to make a decision concerning the collection of information contained in this proposed rule between 30 and 60 days after publication of this proposed rule in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . Therefore, comments should be submitted to OMB, with a copy to the FWS Information Collection Clearance Officer, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, (see “Information Collection” section below under <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ) by August 22, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">Document availability:</E> You may view the application package, the associated draft environmental assessment, comments received, and other supporting material at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FWS-R7-ES-2024-0195, or these documents may be requested as described under <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> . <E T="03">Comment submission:</E> You may submit comments on the proposed rule and draft environmental assessment by one of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic submission:</E> Federal eRulemaking Portal at: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the instructions for submitting comments to Docket No. FWS-R7-ES-2024-0195. • <E T="03">U.S. mail:</E> Public Comments Processing, Attn: Docket No. FWS-R7-ES-2024-0195, Policy and Regulations Branch, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, MS: PRB (JAO/3W), 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041-3803. We will post all comments at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> You may request that we withhold personal identifying information from public review; however, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so. See Request for Public Comments for more information. <E T="03">Information collection requirements:</E> Written comments and suggestions on the information collection requirements should be submitted within 60 days of publication of this notice to <E T="03">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain.</E> Find this particular information collection by selecting “Currently under Review—Open for Public Comments” or by using the search function. Please provide a copy of your comments to the FWS Information Collection Clearance Officer, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 5275 Leesburg Pike, MS: PRB (JAO/3W), Falls Church, VA 22041-3803 (mail); or <E T="03">Info_Coll@fws.gov</E> (email). Please reference “RIN 1018-BI08” in the subject line of your comments. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Stephanie Burgess, by email at <E T="03">R7mmmregulatory@fws.gov</E> or by telephone 907-786-3800. 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-R7-ES-2024-0195 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">Executive Summary</HD> In accordance with the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 (16 U.S.C. 1371(a)(5)(A)) and its implementing regulations, we, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (hereafter FWS or we), propose incidental take regulations that, if finalized, would allow through Letters of Authorization (LOAs) the nonlethal, incidental, unintentional take of small numbers of northern sea otters ( <E T="03">Enhydra lutris kenyoni</E> ) during pile driving and marine construction in Seward, Sitka, and Kodiak, Alaska. If finalized, the rule would be effective for 5 years from the date of issuance. This proposed rule is based on our preliminary findings that the total takings of sea otters during specified activities will impact small numbers of animals, will have a negligible impact on this species or stocks, and will not have an unmitigable adverse impact on the availability of northern sea otters for subsistence use by Alaska Natives. We base our preliminary findings on the best available scientific evidence, including but not limited to, data from monitoring the encounters and interactions between sea otters and pile driving and marine construction activities; research on northern sea otters; potential and documented effects on this species from similar activities; information regarding the natural history and conservation status of sea otters; and data reported from Alaska Native subsistence hunters. In conjunction with this proposed rulemaking, we have prepared a draft environmental assessment, which is also available for public review and comment. The proposed regulations include permissible methods of nonlethal taking; mitigation measures to ensure that the activities of the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) will have the least practicable adverse impact on the northern sea otters, their habitat, and the availability of this species for subsistence uses; and requirements for monitoring and reporting. Compliance with this rule, if finalized, is not expected to result in significant additional costs to the applicant, and any costs are minimal in comparison to those related to actual pile driving and marine construction activities. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> Section 101(a)(5)(A) of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) (16 U.S.C. 1371(a)(5)(A)) gives the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) the authority to allow the incidental, but not intentional, taking of small numbers of certain marine mammals, in response to requests by U.S. citizens (as defined in title 50 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) in part 18 (at 50 CFR 18.27(c)) engaged in a specified activity (other than commercial fishing) within a specified geographic region. The Secretary has delegated authority for implementation of the MMPA to the FWS. According to the MMPA, the FWS shall allow this incidental taking for a period of up to 5 consecutive years if we find that the total of such taking: (1) will affect only small numbers of individuals of the species or stock; (2) will have no more than a negligible impact on the species or stock; and (3) will not have an unmitigable adverse impact on the availability of the species or stock for taking for subsistence use by Alaska Natives. If the requisite findings are made, we issue regulations that set forth the following, where applicable: (a) permissible methods of taking; (b) means of effecting the least practicable adverse impact on the species or stock and its habitat and the availability of the species or stock for subsistence uses; and (c) requirements for monitoring and reporting of such taking. If final regulations allowing such incidental take are issued, we may then subsequently issue letters of authorization (LOA), upon request, to authorize incidental take during the specified activities. The term “take” means to “harass, hunt, capture, or kill, or attempt to harass, hunt, capture, or kill any marine mammal” (16 U.S.C. 1362(13)). Harassment for activities other than military readiness activities or scientific research conducted by or on behalf of the Federal Government means any act of pursuit, torment, or annoyance that has the potential to injure a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild (the MMPA defines this as Level A harassment), or has the potential to disturb a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild by causing disruption of behavioral patterns, including, but not limited to, migration, breathing, nursing, breeding, feeding, or sheltering (the MMPA defines th ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 222k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━