Migratory Bird Hunting; 2025-26 Seasons for Certain Migratory Game Birds

<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; 2025-26 Seasons for Certain Migratory Game Birds</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This rule prescribes the seasons, hours, areas, and daily bag and possession limits for hunting migratory game birds. Taking of migratory game birds is prohibited unless specifically provided for by annual regulations. This rule permits the taking of designated species during the 2025-26 season. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule takes effect on August 22, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> 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 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">Regulations Schedule for 2025</HD> On January 21, 2025, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service, we) published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (90 FR 7056) a proposal to amend title 50 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) at 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 §§ 20.100 through 20.107, 20.109, and 20.110 of subpart K. Major steps in the 2025-26 regulatory cycle 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 (90 FR 7056 at 7065). We provided the meeting dates and locations for the Service 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> On November 19, 2024, we held open meetings with the Flyway Council Consultants, at which the participants reviewed information on the current status of migratory game birds and developed recommendations for the 2025-26 regulations for these species. The January 21, 2025, proposed rule provided detailed information on the proposed 2025-26 regulatory schedule. On April 24, 2025, we published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (90 FR 17300) the proposed frameworks for migratory game bird hunting regulations during the 2025-26 season. On August 18, 2025, we published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (90 FR 40178) the final frameworks for migratory game bird hunting regulations, from which State wildlife conservation agency officials selected seasons, hours, areas, and limits for hunting migratory birds during the 2025-26 season. The final rule described here is the final in the series of proposed, supplemental, and final rulemaking documents for migratory game bird hunting regulations for the 2025-26 season and deals specifically with amending subpart K of 50 CFR part 20. It sets hunting seasons, hours, areas, and limits for migratory game bird species. This final rule is the culmination of the annual rulemaking process allowing migratory game bird hunting, which started with the January 21, 2025, proposed rule. As discussed elsewhere in this document, we supplemented that proposal on April 24, 2025, and published final season frameworks on August 18, 2025, that provided the regulatory frameworks from which the States selected their hunting seasons. This final rule sets the migratory game bird hunting seasons based on that input from the States. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Required Determinations</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Consideration</HD> The programmatic document, “Second Final Supplement, USFWS, Issuance of Annual Regulations Permitting the Hunting of Migratory Birds” (EIS No. 20130139), filed with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on May 24, 2013, addresses NEPA compliance by the Service for issuance of the annual framework regulations for hunting of migratory game bird species. We published a notice of availability in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on May 31, 2013 (78 FR 32686), and our record of decision on July 26, 2013 (78 FR 45376). We also address NEPA compliance for waterfowl hunting frameworks through the annual preparation of separate environmental assessments, the most recent being the Duck Hunting Regulations for the 2025-26 Season and its corresponding 2025 finding of no significant impact. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Endangered Species Act Consideration</HD> Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (16 U.S.C. 1531 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ), provides that the Secretary shall insure that any action authorized, funded, or carried out is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any endangered species or threatened species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of critical habitat. Consequently, we conducted consultations to ensure that actions resulting from these regulations would not likely jeopardize the continued existence of endangered or threatened species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of their critical habitat. Findings from these consultations are included in a biological opinion, which concluded that the regulations are not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any endangered or threatened species. Additionally, these findings may have caused modification of some regulatory measures previously proposed, and the final frameworks (90 FR 40178, August 18, 2025) reflect any such modifications. The biological opinion is available from <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> at Docket No. FWS-HQ-MB-2024-0127. Executive Order (E.O.) 12866, as reaffirmed by E.O. 13563, provides that the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will review all significant rules. This action is a significant regulatory action, as defined under section 3(f)(1) of E.O. 12866 (58 FR 51735, October 4, 1993). An economic analysis was prepared for the 2025-26 migratory bird hunting season. This analysis was based on data from the 2011 and the 2016 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation (National Survey), the most recent years for which data are available. See discussion under Required Determinations, <E T="03">Regulatory Flexibility Act,</E> below. This analysis estimated consumer surplus for four alternatives for hunting regulations. As defined by OMB in Circular A-4, consumers' surplus is the difference between what a consumer pays for a unit of a good or service and the maximum amount the consumer would be willing to pay for that unit. The duck hunting regulatory alternatives are (1) not opening a hunting season; (2) issuing restrictive regulations that allow fewer days than the 2024-25 season; (3) issuing moderate regulations that allow more days than in Alternative 2 but fewer days than the 2024-25 season, and (4) issuing liberal regulations that allow days similar to the 2024-25 season. The estimated consumer surplus associated with liberal regulations issued for the 2024-25 season across all flyways was $624 million to $816 million (2024$). We also chose Alternative 4 (liberal regulations) for the 2009-10 through 2024-25 seasons. The 2025-26 analysis is part of the record for this rulemaking action and is available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> at Docket No. FWS-HQ-MB-2024-0127. <HD SOURCE="HD2"> Regulatory Flexibility Act (5 U.S.C. 601 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) </HD> The annual migratory bird hunting regulations have a significant economic impact on substantial numbers of small entities, such as restaurants, grocery stores, lodging, transportation, and sporting goods stores under the Regulatory Flexibility Act (5 U.S.C. 601 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). An initial regulatory flexibility analysis was prepared to analyze the economic impacts of the annual hunting regulations on small business entities. This analysis is updated annually. The primary source of information about hunter expenditures for migratory game bird hunting is the National Survey, which is generally conducted at 5-year intervals. The 2022 National Survey did not collect migratory bird expenditure data, so the 2025-26 migratory bird hunting season analysis is based on the 2011 and 2016 National Surveys and the U.S. Department of Commerce's County Business Patterns, from which it is estimated that migratory bird hunters will spend approximately $2.5 billion (2024$) at small businesses during the 2025-26 migratory bird hunting season. In summary, this final rule will have a significant beneficial economic impact on small entities. Without these annu ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 227k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━