Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Endangered Species Status for the Blue Tree Monitor

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 17</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-HQ-ES-2023-0033; FXES1113090FEDR-256-FF09E22000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BH98</RIN> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Endangered Species Status for the Blue Tree Monitor</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule; reopening of comment period and announcement of public hearing. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), are reopening the comment period on our December 26, 2024, proposed rule to list the blue tree monitor ( <E T="03">Varanus macraei</E> ), a lizard species from Indonesia, as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act). We are taking this action to allow interested parties an additional opportunity to comment on the proposed rule and to conduct a public hearing. Comments previously submitted need not be resubmitted and will be fully considered in preparation of the final rule. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Comment submission:</E> The public comment period on the proposed rule that published on December 26, 2024, at 89 FR 104952 is reopened. We will accept comments received on or before August 15, 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, and comments submitted by U.S. mail must be received by that date to ensure consideration. <E T="03">Public hearing:</E> On July 31, 2025, we will hold a public hearing on the proposed rule to list the blue tree monitor as an endangered species under the Act from 12 to 2 p.m. Eastern Time, using the Zoom platform (for more information, see Public Hearing, below). </EFFDATE> <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-HQ-ES-2023-0033, which is the docket number for the proposed rule. 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-HQ-ES-2023-0033, 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">Document availability:</E> The December 26, 2024, proposed rule and its supporting documents, including the species status assessment report, are available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FWS-HQ-ES-2023-0033. <E T="03">Public hearing:</E> Interested parties may present verbal testimony (formal, oral comments) at a public hearing, which will be held virtually using the Zoom platform. See Public Hearing, below, for more information. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Rachel London, Manager, Branch of Delisting and Foreign Species, Ecological Services Program, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; telephone 703-358-2171; <E T="03">Rachel_London@fws.gov.</E> 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-HQ-ES-2023-0033 on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> for a document that summarizes the December 26, 2024, proposed rule. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Information Requested</HD> We intend that any final action resulting from our December 26, 2024, proposed rule (89 FR 104952) 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 governmental agencies, Native American Tribes, the scientific community, industry, or any other interested parties concerning our proposed rule. In addition to the information requested in our proposed rule, we also seek comments concerning: (1) Verifiable information demonstrating successful breeding of blue tree monitors in captivity, particularly evidence of legal acquisition of breeding stock and production of a second filial (F2) generation, or subsequent generation. (2) New information that leads us to conclude the blue tree monitor is threatened instead of endangered and information to assist us with applying or issuing protective regulations under section 4(d) of the Act (a “4(d) rule”) that may be necessary and advisable to provide for the conservation of the blue tree monitor. In particular, we seek information concerning: (a) The extent to which we should include any of the Act's section 9(a)(1) prohibitions in the 4(d) rule (including import, export, take, activities with unlawfully taken specimens, and activities in interstate or foreign commerce); (b) Whether we should consider any modifications or additional exceptions from the prohibitions in the 4(d) rule (for example, an exception for interstate commerce of live blue tree monitors bred in captivity in the United States in accordance with the requirements of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES); or an exception for interstate commerce of live blue tree monitors from one public institution to another public institution); and (c) Additional information describing the adequacy or inadequacy of protections afforded to the blue tree monitor via CITES trade regulations, regulations of the range country, or any other relevant regulations. Please include sufficient information with your submission (such as scientific journal articles or other publications; evidence of legal acquisition of breeding stock and specimens successfully bred-in-captivity; copies of relevant laws, regulations, or permits) 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 or a threatened species must be made solely on the basis of the best scientific and commercial data available. Comments or information already submitted on the proposed rule (89 FR 104952, December 26, 2024) need not be resubmitted. Any such comments are already incorporated as part of the public record of the rulemaking proceeding, and we will fully consider them as part of the action. You may submit your comments and materials concerning the December 26, 2024, 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 the December 26, 2024, proposed rule, will be available for public inspection on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Our final determination may differ from the December 26, 2024, proposal because we will consider all comments we receive during the comment period as well as any information that may become available after the proposal. Based on the new information we receive (and, if relevant, any comments on that new information), we may conclude that the species is threatened instead of endangered, or we may conclude that the species does not warrant listing as either an endangered species or a threatened species. In our final rule, we will clearly explain our rationale and the basis for our final decision, including why we made changes, if any, that differ from the December 26, 2024, proposal. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On December 26, 2024, we published a proposed rule (89 FR 104952) to list the blue tree monitor as an endangered species under the Act (16 U.S.C. 1531 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). The proposed rule opened a 60-day public comment period, ending February 24, 2025. During the open comment period, we received a request for a public hearing on the proposed rule. Therefore, we are reopening the comment period on the proposal and announcing a public hearing (see <E T="02">DATES</E> , above) to allow the public an additional opportunity to provide comments on the proposed rule to list the blue tree monitor. For a description of previous Federal a ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 14k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━