Agency Information Collection Activities; Eagle Take Permits and Fees

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-HQ-MB-2025-0803; FXMB12320900000-256-FF09M30000; OMB Control Number 1018-0167]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Agency Information Collection Activities; Eagle Take Permits and Fees</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of information collection; request for comment. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), we, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), are proposing to renew a currently approved information collection without change. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Interested persons are invited to submit comments on or before February 2, 2026. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Send your comments on the information collection request (ICR) by one of the following methods (please reference OMB Control No. 1018-0167 in the subject line of your comment): • <E T="03">Internet (preferred): https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the instructions for submitting comments on Docket No. FWS-HQ-MB-2025-0803. • <E T="03">U.S. mail:</E> Service Information Collection Clearance Officer, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 5275 Leesburg Pike, MS: PRB (JAO/3W); Falls Church, VA 22041-3803. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Madonna L. Baucum, Service Information Collection Clearance Officer, by email at <E T="03">Info_Coll@fws.gov,</E> or by telephone at (703) 358-2503. 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> In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA; 44 U.S.C. 3501 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) and its implementing regulations at 5 CFR part 1320, all information collections require approval under the PRA. We may not conduct or sponsor, and you are not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid Office of Management and Budget (OMB) control number. As part of our continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burdens, we are again inviting the public and other Federal agencies to comment on continuing collections of information. This helps us assess the impact of our information collection requirements and minimize the public's reporting burden. It also helps the public understand our information collection requirements and provide the requested data in the desired format. We are especially interested in public comment addressing the following: (1) Whether or not the collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the agency, including whether or not the information will have practical utility; (2) The accuracy of our estimate of the burden for this collection of information, including the validity of the methodology and assumptions used; (3) Ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and (4) How might the agency minimize the burden of the collection of information on those who are to respond, including through the use of appropriate automated, electronic, mechanical, or other technological collection techniques or other forms of information technology, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> permitting electronic submission of response. Comments that you submit in response to this notice are a matter of public record. Before including your address, phone number, email address, or other personal identifying information in your comment, you should be aware that your entire comment—including your personal identifying information—may be publicly available at any time. While you can ask us in your comment to withhold your personal identifying information from public review, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so. <E T="03">Abstract:</E> The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act (Eagle Act; 16 U.S.C. 668-668d) prohibits take of bald eagles and golden eagles except pursuant to Federal regulations. The Eagle Act regulations at title 50, part 22 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) define the “take” of an eagle to include the following broad range of actions: To “pursue, shoot, shoot at, poison, wound, kill, capture, trap, collect, destroy, molest, or disturb.” The Eagle Act allows the Secretary of the Interior to authorize certain otherwise prohibited activities through regulations. All Service permit applications associated with eagles are in the 3-200 and 3-202 series of forms, each tailored to a specific activity based on the requirements for specific types of permits. We collect standard identifier information for all permits. The information that we collect on applications and reports is the minimum necessary for us to determine if the applicant meets/continues to meet issuance requirements for the particular activity. The Service proposes to renew the information collections listed below, without change, in order to extend the expiration date for the collection (currently July 31, 2026) while the Service continues to finalize proposed regulations under RIN 1018-BI80, Deregulatory Actions Relating to Migratory Birds and Eagles. As part of that rulemaking, the Service will propose amendments to our miscellaneous provisions relating to migratory birds and eagles. We will propose revisions to current regulations to more efficiently and appropriately authorize activities while meeting our obligations under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, the Airborne Hunting Act, and the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act. We will propose to modify requirements from a prescriptive approach to a performance-based standard approach to allow greater flexibility in compliance. We will also propose to clarify and streamline requirements to improve understanding and ease of compliance. Finally, we will propose to remove certain parts, sections, and subsections to reduce confusion and improve regulatory efficiency, including regulatory language related to airborne hunting, hunting migratory birds, eagle permits, feeding depredating migratory waterfowl, and duck stamp contests. We anticipate publication of that proposed rule under RIN 1018-BI80 in late 2025 or early 2026 and we will provide a separate comment period for information collections associated with that proposed rulemaking. We will request OMB approval to renew, without change, the following information collection requirements associated with eagles: (1) <E T="03">Form 3-200-14, “Eagle Exhibition”</E> —This form is used to apply for a permit to possess and use eagles and eagle specimens for educational purposes. The Service uses the information collected via the form to determine whether eagles are legally acquired and will be used for conservation education, and in the case of live eagles, will be housed and handled under safe and healthy conditions. (2) <E T="03">Form 3-200-15a, “Eagle Parts for Native American Religious Purposes”</E> —This application form is used by enrolled members of federally recognized Native American Tribes to obtain authorization to acquire and possess eagle feathers and parts from the Service's National Eagle Repository (NER). The permittee also uses the form to make additional requests for eagle parts and feathers from the NER. The Service uses the information collected via the form to verify that the applicant is an enrolled member of a federally recognized Tribe, and what parts and/or feathers the applicant is requesting. (3) <E T="03">Form 3-200-16, “Take of Depredating Eagles & Eagles that Pose a Risk to Human or Eagle Health or Safety—Annual Report”</E> —Applicants use this form to obtain authorization to take eagles that depredate on wildlife or livestock, or those that pose a risk to personal property or human or eagle health or safety. A depredation permit is intended to provide short-term relief from depredation damage until long-term measures can be implemented to reduce or eliminate the depredation problem through nonlethal control techniques. The Service uses the information collected via the form to determine whether the take is necessary to protect the relevant interests; other alternatives have been considered; and the method of take is humane and compatible with the preservation of eagles. (4) <E T="03">Form 3-200-18, “Take of Golden Eagle Nests During Resource Development or Recovery”</E> —This application is used by commercial entities engaged in resource development or recovery operations, such as mining or drilling, to obtain authorization to remove or destroy golden eagle nests. The Service uses the information collected via the form to determine whether the take is necessary and will be compatible with the preservation of eagles. (5) <E T="03">Form 3-200-77, “Native American Eagle Take for Religious Purposes”</E> —Federally recognized Native American Tribes use this form to apply for authorization to take eagles from the wild for Tribal religious purposes. The Service uses the information obtained via the form to determine whether the take is necessary to meet the Tribe's religious needs, they received consent of the landowner, the take is compatible with the preservation of eagles, and any eagles kept alive will be held under humane conditions. (6) <E T="03">Form 3-200-78, “Native American Tribal Eagle Aviary”</E> —Federally recognized Native American Tribes use this form to apply for authorization to keep live eagles for Tribal religious purposes. The Se ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 26k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━