Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; 12-Month Not-Warranted Finding for the Okinawa Woodpecker

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 17</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0771; FXES1111090FEDR-256-FF09E21000]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; 12-Month Not-Warranted Finding for the Okinawa Woodpecker</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notification of finding. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), announce a 12-month finding on a petition to list the Okinawa woodpecker ( <E T="03">Dendrocopos noguchii</E> ) as an endangered or threatened species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act). The Okinawa woodpecker is a relatively large woodpecker endemic to northern Okinawa, Japan. After a thorough review of the best scientific and commercial data available, we find that listing the Okinawa woodpecker as an endangered, or threatened, species is not warranted at this time. However, we ask the public to submit to us, at any time, any new information relevant to the status of the Okinawa woodpecker, or its habitat. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The finding in this document was made on November 18, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> A detailed description of the basis for this finding is available on the internet at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0771. Please submit any new information, materials, comments, or questions concerning this finding to the person listed under <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> . <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, MS: ES, 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041-3803; telephone: 703-358-2171. 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">Background</HD> Under section 4(b)(3)(B) of the Act (16 U.S.C. 1531 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ), when we receive any petition that we have determined contains substantial scientific or commercial information then we must decide, within 12 months, if the petitioned action is warranted or not (12-month finding). We must make a finding that the petitioned action is: (1) not warranted; (2) warranted; or (3) warranted but precluded by other listing activity. We must publish a notification of the 12-month finding in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . <HD SOURCE="HD1">Summary of Information Pertaining to the Five Factors</HD> Section 4 of the Act (16 U.S.C. 1533) and the implementing regulations at part 424 of title 50 of the Code of Federal Regulations (50 CFR part 424) set forth the procedures for: (1) adding species to, (2) removing species from, or (3) reclassifying species on the Lists of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants (Lists). The Act defines “species” as including any subspecies of fish, wildlife, or plants and any distinct population segment of any species of vertebrate fish or wildlife which interbreeds when mature. The Act defines an “endangered species” as a species that is in danger of extinction throughout all, or a significant portion, of its range and a “threatened species” as a species that is likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range. The Act requires that we determine whether any species is an endangered species or a threatened species because of any of the following 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. These factors represent broad categories of natural or human-caused actions or conditions that could have an effect on a species' continued existence. In evaluating these actions and conditions, we look for those that may have a negative effect on individuals of the species, as well as other actions or conditions that may ameliorate any negative effects or may have positive effects. We use the term “threat” to refer, in general, to actions or conditions that are known to, or are reasonably likely to, negatively affect individuals of a species. The term “threat” includes actions or conditions that have a direct impact on individuals (direct impacts), as well as those that affect individuals through alteration of their habitat or required resources (stressors). The term “threat” may encompass—either together or separately—the source of the action or condition or the action or condition itself. However, the mere identification of any threat(s) does not necessarily mean that the species meets the statutory definition of an “endangered species” or a “threatened species.” In determining whether a species meets either definition, we must evaluate all identified threats by considering the species' expected response to the threats, the effects of the threats, and any actions and conditions that will ameliorate the threats at an individual, population, and species level. We evaluate each threat and its expected effects on the species, then analyze the cumulative effect of all the threats on the species as a whole. We also consider the cumulative effect of the threats along with those actions and conditions that will have positive effects on the species, such as any existing regulatory mechanisms or conservation efforts. The Secretary determines whether the species meets the definition of an “endangered species” or a “threatened species” only after conducting this cumulative analysis and describing the expected effect on the species. The Act does not define the term “foreseeable future,” which appears in the statutory definition of “threatened species.” Our implementing regulations under 50 CFR, section 424.11(d) set forth a framework for evaluating the “foreseeable future” as a case-by-case basis. This term is further described in the 2009 Memorandum Opinion on the foreseeable future from the Department of the Interior, Office of the Solicitor (M-37021, January 16, 2009; “M-Opinion,” available online at <E T="03">https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.opengov.ibmcloud.com/files/uploads/M-37021.pdf)</E> . The foreseeable future extends as far into the future as the Service can make reasonably reliable predictions about the threats to the species and the species' responses to those threats. We need not identify the foreseeable future in terms of a specific period of time. We will describe the foreseeable future on a case-by-case basis, using the best available data and taking into account considerations such as the species' life-history characteristics, threat projection timeframes, and environmental variability. In other words, the foreseeable future is the period of time over which we can make reasonably reliable predictions. “Reliable” does not mean “certain”; it means sufficient to provide a reasonable degree of confidence in the prediction, in light of the conservation purposes of the Act. In conducting our evaluation of the five factors provided in section 4(a)(1) of the Act to determine whether the Okinawa woodpecker meets the Act's definition of an endangered species or a threatened species, we considered and thoroughly evaluated the best scientific and commercial information available regarding the past, present, and future stressors and threats. We reviewed the petition, candidate notice of review, information available in our files, and other available published and unpublished information for the species. Our evaluation may include information from recognized experts; Federal, State, and Tribal governments; academic institutions; foreign governments; private entities; and other members of the public. In accordance with the regulations under 50 CFR, section 424.14(h)(2)(i), this document announces the not-warranted finding on a petition to list the Okinawa woodpecker. We have also elected to include a brief summary of the analysis on which this finding is based. We provide the full analysis, including the reasons and data on which the finding is based, in the decisional file for the Okinawa woodpecker. The following is a description of the documents containing this analysis. The species assessment form for the Okinawa woodpecker contains more detailed biological information, a thorough analysis of the listing factors, a list of literature cited, and an explanation of why we determined that the species does not meet the Act's definition of an endangered species or a threatened species. To inform our status review, we completed a species status assessment (SSA) report for the species. The SSA report contains a thorough review of the taxonomy, life history, ecology, current status, and projected future status for the Okinawa woodpecker. This supporting information can be found on the internet at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> under the Docket No. FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0771. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Previous Federal Actions</HD> On November 28, 1980, we received a petition from the International Council for Bird Preservation to list 79 bird species as endangered or threatened species under the Act. The International Council for Bird Preservation was renamed Birdlife International in 1994. On May 12, ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 29k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━