Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Removal of the Dwarf-flowered Heartleaf From the List of Endangered and Threatened Plants

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 17</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-R4-ES-2019-0081; FXES11130900000-234-FF09E22000]RIN 1018-BD95</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Removal of the Dwarf-flowered Heartleaf From the List of Endangered and Threatened Plants</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 removing the dwarf-flowered heartleaf ( <E T="03">Hexastylis naniflora</E> ) from the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Plants. After a review of the best available scientific and commercial information, we find that delisting the species is warranted. Our review indicates that the threats to the dwarf-flowered heartleaf have been eliminated or reduced to the point that the species no longer meets the definition of an endangered or threatened species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act). Accordingly, the prohibitions and conservation measures provided by the Act, particularly through sections 4 and 7, will no longer apply to the dwarf-flowered heartleaf. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective August 7, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> This final rule is available on the internet at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Comments and materials we received are available for public inspection at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FWS-R4-ES-2019-0081. <E T="03">Availability of supporting materials:</E> This rule and supporting documents, including the proposed rule, post-delisting monitoring plan, and the species status assessment (SSA) report, are available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FWS-R4-ES-2019-0081. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Janet Mizzi, Field Supervisor, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Asheville Ecological Services Field Office; <E T="03">janet_mizzi@fws.gov;</E> telephone 828-258-3939. 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. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Executive Summary</HD> <E T="03">Why we need to publish a rule.</E> Under the Act, a species warrants removal from the Federal Lists of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants if it no longer meets the definition of an endangered species (in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range) or a threatened species (likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range). The dwarf-flowered heartleaf is listed as threatened, and we are delisting it because we have determined it does not meet the Act's definition of an endangered or threatened species. Delisting a species can be completed only by issuing a rule through the Administrative Procedure Act rulemaking process (5 U.S.C. 551 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). <E T="03">What this document does.</E> This rule removes the dwarf-flowered heartleaf from the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Plants based on the species' recovery. <E T="03">The basis for our action.</E> Under the Act, we may determine that a species is an endangered species or a threatened species because of any of five factors: (A) The present or threatened destruction, modification, or curtailment of its habitat or range; (B) overutilization for commercial, recreational, scientific, or educational purposes; (C) disease or predation; (D) the inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms; or (E) other natural or manmade factors affecting its continued existence. The determination to delist a species must be based on an analysis of the same factors. Under the Act, we must review the status of all listed species at least once every 5 years. We must delist a species if we determine, on the basis of the best available scientific and commercial data, that the species is neither a threatened species nor an endangered species. Our regulations at 50 CFR 424.11(e) identify four reasons why we might determine a species shall be delisted: (1) The species is extinct, (2) the species has recovered to the point at which it no longer meets the definition of an endangered species or a threatened species, (3) new information that has become available since the original listing decision shows the listed entity does not meet the definition of an endangered species or a threatened species, or (4) new information that has become available since the original listing decision shows the listed entity does not meet the definition of a species. Here, we have determined that the dwarf-flowered heartleaf has recovered to the point at which it no longer meets the definition of an endangered species or a threatened species; therefore, we are delisting it. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Previous Federal Actions</HD> Please refer to the proposed rule to delist the dwarf-flowered heartleaf published on April 26, 2021 (86 FR 21994), for a detailed description of previous Federal actions concerning this species. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Peer Review</HD> A species status assessment (SSA) team prepared an SSA report for the dwarf-flowered heartleaf. The SSA team was composed of Service biologists, in consultation with other species experts. The SSA report represents a compilation of the best scientific and commercial data available concerning the status of the species, including the impact of past, present, and future factors (both negative and beneficial) affecting the species. 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 in listing and recovery actions under the Act, we solicited independent scientific review of the information contained in the dwarf-flowered heartleaf SSA report. As discussed in the proposed rule, we sent the SSA report to seven independent peer reviewers and received no responses. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Summary of Changes from the Proposed Rule</HD> In this final rule, we make no substantive changes to our April 26, 2021 (86 FR 21994), proposed rule. Minor, non-substantive changes have been made throughout this final rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Summary of Comments and Recommendations</HD> In the proposed rule published on April 26, 2021 (86 FR 21994), we requested that all interested parties submit written comments on the proposal by June 25, 2021. We also contacted appropriate Federal and State agencies, Tribal entities, scientific experts and organizations, and other interested parties and invited them to comment on the proposal. Newspaper notices inviting general public comment were published in the Charlotte Observer and the Spartanburg Herald Journal. We did not receive any requests for a public hearing. All substantive information received during the comment period has either been incorporated directly into this final determination or is addressed below. <HD SOURCE="HD2">State Agency Comments</HD> (1) <E T="03">Comment:</E> The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) commented that delisting dwarf-flowered heartleaf is premature. The SCDNR found that the SSA report presented: (1) flawed data on the number of populations and range, in part because of ongoing taxonomic research, but also because there are no recent observations of 41 (34 percent) of the reported 119 populations; and (2) insufficient consideration of future threats in a rapidly growing development area of South Carolina. <E T="03">Our Response:</E> Based on North Carolina Natural Heritage Program (NCNHP) and South Carolina Heritage Trust Program data, the species consists of 119 populations distributed across 13 counties in North and South Carolina. The total number of populations was derived from element occurrence (E.O.) data from the Natural Heritage Programs (NHP). NHPs collect information on occurrences of rare plants, animals, natural communities, and animal assemblages. Collectively, these are referred to as “elements of natural diversity” or simply as “elements.” Specific occurrences of the elements are referred to as “element occurrences”. For our analysis, we used population size as the main driver of population resilience. E.O. data included a wide range of years since the species was last observed at a given location (1964-2017), although recent data and reports indicate the species consists of 119 populations, some of that data is outdated. For the purposes of this analysis, we only used EOs that were observed since 2005. We did this for several reasons. First, we did not want to assume a population was still present if it had not been observed recently. Second, we wanted to be consistent in what we considered “current” for both categorizing resilience and use in the habitat model. Third, experts concurred that records as old as 12 years are still likely to persist (number of years between 2005 and the SSA). Finally, there was a natural data break in 2005, coinciding with the year the last 5-year review was initiated. It is important to note that many of the populations that were excluded from the analysis may still persist on the landscape. In fact, many EOs for this species have persisted for decades, despite not having intervening surveys to confirm their persistence. Based on the exclusion of pre-2005 EO ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 103k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━