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

<RULE> 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; Final 2025-26 Frameworks for Migratory Bird Hunting Regulations</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service or we) is establishing the final frameworks from which States may select season dates, limits, and other options for the 2025-26 migratory game bird hunting season. We annually prescribe 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> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule takes effect on August 18, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> States should send their season selections to: Chief, Division of Migratory Bird Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, MS: MB, 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041-3803. You may inspect comments received on the migratory bird hunting regulations at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> at Docket No. FWS-HQ-MB-2024-0127. You may obtain copies of referenced reports from the street address above, or from the Division of Migratory Bird Management's website at <E T="03">https://www.fws.gov/program/migratory-birds,</E> or at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> at Docket No. FWS-HQ-MB-2024-0127. <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. </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 final rule is the third 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 (90 FR 7056) 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. 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. The January 21, 2025, proposed rule provided detailed information on the proposed 2025-26 regulatory schedule. We provided the meeting dates and locations for the Service's Migratory Bird 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 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. On April 24, 2025, we published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (90 FR 17300) the proposed regulatory frameworks for the 2025-26 migratory game bird hunting season. We have considered all pertinent comments received, which includes comments submitted in response to our January 21, 2025, and April 24, 2025, proposed rulemaking documents and comments from the May and November SRC meetings. This document establishes final regulatory frameworks for the 2025-26 migratory game bird hunting season and includes no substantive changes from the April 24, 2025, proposed rule. We will publish State season selections in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> as amendments to §§ 20.101 through 20.107 and 20.109 of title 50 CFR part 20. <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 and details of our adaptive harvest management decision framework assessments. These reports contain descriptions of species population segments referenced in status assessments. 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. These reports can be found on our website at the above hyperlinks. • 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 final 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">Summary of Public Comments and Response</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 for the 2025-26 hunting season. We subsequently published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> the proposed regulatory frameworks (Federal limits) for the 2025-26 migratory game bird hunting season on April 24, 2025, which also included a request for public comments. We indicated in both rulemaking documents that we would summarize the comments received and publish responses to all pertinent written comments when we developed these final frameworks for the 2025-26 season. We received a total of 56 unique (plus 3 duplicate and 2 unrelated to the proposed rule) written comments from individuals and organizations on the proposed rules, which contained 101 individual substantive comments. We received 16 comments providing general support for all or some of the provisions of this rulemaking. Due to the number of comments, this summary presents major themes (issues) occurring throughout the comments. We grouped and discussed comments of a similar nature under the issue headings identified below. Although we considered several comments to be outside the scope of this rulemaking, we summarize these and respond for completeness unless the comment scope was outside of migratory game bird hunting in the United States. In addition, we considered and incorporated, as appropriate, into the final rule all relevant information obtained through the public comment periods. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Hunting and the Regulation Development Process in General</HD> ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 299k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━