Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Regulations for Eleven Species Treated as Listed Due to Similarity of Appearance

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 17</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0176; FXES1111090FEDR-256-FF09E23000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BI81</RIN> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Regulations for Eleven Species Treated as Listed Due to Similarity of Appearance</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), propose to revise regulations issued under section 4(e) of the Endangered Species Act (Act) related to furthering the conservation of the following listed endangered species and threatened species: Pearl River map turtle ( <E T="03">Graptemys pearlensis</E> ), bog turtle (northern distinct population segment [DPS]) ( <E T="03">Glyptemys muhlenbergii</E> ), Miami blue butterfly ( <E T="03">Cyclargus thomasi bethunebakeri</E> ), Desert tortoise (Mojave DPS) ( <E T="03">Gopherus agassizii</E> ), Florida panther ( <E T="03">Puma (=Felis) concolor coryi</E> ), and pallid sturgeon ( <E T="03">Scaphirhynchus albus</E> ). We propose to amend or remove regulations concerning taking or commerce in the following 11 similarity of appearance species: Alabama map turtle ( <E T="03">Graptemys pulchra</E> ), Barbour's map turtle ( <E T="03">Graptemys barbouri</E> ), Escambia map turtle ( <E T="03">Graptemys ernsti</E> ), Pascagoula map turtle ( <E T="03">Graptemys gibbonsi</E> ), bog turtle (southern DPS), cassius blue butterfly ( <E T="03">Leptotes cassius theonus</E> ), ceraunus blue butterfly ( <E T="03">Hemiargus ceraunus antibubastus</E> ), nickerbean blue butterfly ( <E T="03">Cyclargus ammon</E> ), desert tortoise (Sonoran population), puma (=mountain lion) ( <E T="03">Puma (=Felis) concolor</E> (all subspecies except <E T="03">coryi</E> )), and shovelnose sturgeon ( <E T="03">Scaphirhynchus platorynchus</E> ). We are proposing these changes to eliminate unnecessary regulations and to ensure that species treated as endangered or threatened under section 4(e) of the Act meet the three required criteria as directed in section 4(e) of the Act. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> We will accept comments received or postmarked on or before October 27, 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. We cannot guarantee that we will be able to consider hand-delivered comments that we do not receive, or mailed comments that are not postmarked, by October 27, 2025. </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-2025-0176, which is the docket number for this rulemaking. Then, click on the Search button. On the resulting page, in the 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.” Please ensure that you have found the correct rulemaking before submitting your comment. Comments must be submitted to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> before 11:59 p.m. eastern time on the date specified in <E T="02">DATES</E> . (2) <E T="03">By hard copy:</E> Submit by U.S. mail to: Public Comments Processing, Attn: FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0176, 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. Comments and materials we receive will be posted and available for public inspection 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">Availability of supporting materials:</E> References and a document summarizing this proposed rule are available on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0176. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> John Tirpak, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Division of Conservation and Classification; telephone 703-358-2163; <E T="03">john_tirpak@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-2025-0176 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">Information Requested</HD> We intend that any final action resulting from this proposed rule 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 this proposed rule. We particularly seek comments concerning: (1) Threats and conservation actions affecting the species listed under section 4(a) of the Act and whether the similarity of appearance regulations under section 4(e) concerning treatment of the unlisted 4(e) species addressed in this proposed rulemaking are needed to address these threats and conservation actions in accordance with section 4(e). (2) Information to assist us with applying or issuing regulations under section 4(e) of the Act concerning treatment of the following species addressed in this proposed rulemaking (Alabama map turtle, Barbour's map turtle, Escambia map turtle, Pascagoula map turtle, southern DPS of bog turtle, and Sonoran DPS of desert tortoise). In particular, we seek information concerning: (a) The extent to which we should include any of the Act's section 9(a) prohibitions in the 4(e) regulations; and (b) Whether we should consider any additional or different exceptions from the prohibitions in the 4(e) regulations. (3) Potential impacts on the Miami blue butterfly, Florida panther, and pallid sturgeon from proposed removal of 4(e) treatment for the cassius blue butterfly, ceraunus blue butterfly, nickerbean blue butterfly, puma, and shovelnose sturgeon. (4) Potential impacts on regulated entities from the proposed rulemaking. (5) Potential impacts on the Pearl River map turtle, bog turtle (northern DPS), and Desert tortoise (Mojave DPS) from proposed amendment of 4(e) treatment for the Alabama map turtle, Barbour's map turtle, Escambia map turtle, Pascagoula map turtle, bog turtle (southern DPS), and desert tortoise (Sonoran population). Please include any supplemental information with your submission (such as scientific journal articles or other publications) 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. Determinations will be made in accordance with the criteria in section 4(e) of the Act. You may submit your comments and materials concerning this 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 this proposed rule, will be available for public inspection on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> . Our final determination may differ from this proposal because we will consider all comments we receive during the comment period as well as any information that may become available after this proposal. Based on the new information we receive (and, if relevant, any comments on that new information), we may conclude with respect to each unlisted 4(e) species addressed in this proposed rulemaking that we should keep treating the species as listed under section 4(e) of the Act or no longer treat the species as listed under section 4(e) of the Act. In addition, we may change the prohibitions or the exceptions to those prohibitions in the regulations issued or applied under section 4(e) of the Act if we conclude it is appropriate in light of comments and new information received. 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 this proposal. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> Section 4 of the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (“Act” or “ESA”; 16 U.S.C. 1533) and the implementing regulations in title 50 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) set forth the procedures for determining whether a species is an endangered ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 66k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━