Pribilof Islands Administration; Dogs Prohibited

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 216</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 251205-0178]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BN39</RIN> <SUBJECT>Pribilof Islands Administration; Dogs Prohibited</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS proposes to revise regulations that prohibit dogs on the Pribilof Islands by creating an exception for NMFS to authorize certified and trained rodent detection dogs to respond to and prevent the establishment of invasive rodents on the Pribilof Islands. Invasive rodents could have significant consequences for the wildlife species that live and breed on the Pribilof Islands and the health and food security of community members. This action supports Tribal, local, and Federal agency efforts and is intended to promote the goals and objectives of the Fur Seal Act (FSA), the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), and other applicable laws. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Submit comments on or before January 12, 2026. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> A plain language summary of this proposed rule is available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/NOAA-NMFS-2025-0405.</E> You may submit comments on this document, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2025-0405, by either of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Submission:</E> Submit all electronic public comments via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. Go to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> and type NOAA-NMFS-2025-0405 in the Search box. Click the “Comment” icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach your comments. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Submit written comments to the Assistant Regional Administrator, Protected Resources Division, Alaska Region NMFS, P.O. Box 21668, Juneau, AK 99802-1668. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> Comments sent by any other method, to any other address or individual, or received after the end of the comment period may not be considered by NMFS. All comments received are a part of the public record and will generally be posted for public viewing on <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> without change. All personal identifying information ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> name, address), confidential business information, or otherwise sensitive information submitted voluntarily by the sender will be publicly accessible. NMFS will accept anonymous comments (enter “N/A” in the required fields if you wish to remain anonymous). Electronic copies of the draft Regulatory Impact Review prepared for this proposed rule may be obtained from <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Michael Williams, NMFS Alaska Region, 907-271-5117, <E T="03">michael.williams@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Authority for Action</HD> The FSA (16 U.S.C. 1161-1169b) requires the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary) to administer Federal lands of the Pribilof Islands and ensure that activities on such Federal lands are consistent with the purposes of conserving, managing, and protecting northern fur seals, <E T="03">Callorhinus ursinus,</E> and other wildlife. The Secretary is authorized to promulgate regulations necessary for the administration of the Pribilof Islands (16 U.S.C. 1169), which NMFS, acting pursuant to delegated authority, has promulgated at 50 CFR part 216, subpart G-Pribilof Islands Administration. NMFS manages northern fur seals consistent with both the FSA and MMPA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The current text of 50 CFR 216.82, “Dogs prohibited,” states: “ <E T="03">In order to prevent molestation of fur seal herds, the landing of any dogs at Pribilof Islands is prohibited.”</E> NMFS has interpreted the molestation of the fur seal herds to include physical disturbance and disease transmission by a dog or its feces. An invasive rat was reported on St. Paul Island (of the Pribilof Islands) in June 2024. The introduction of an invasive rat (or invasive rodent) could have significant ecological consequences for the indigenous species that live and breed on the islands, including northern fur seals, which have been designated as depleted under the MMPA (53 FR 17888, May 18, 1988). As such, the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island (ACSPI) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) requested that NMFS consider allowing a rat detection dog to land on St. Paul Island for the purpose of confirming the presence of and locating any rats. NMFS has historically supported Tribal, local, and Federal agency efforts to prevent the introduction of invasive rodents on the Pribilof Islands. Invasive rodents include brown rats or Norway rats, black rats or roof rats, mice, and other less common species. Mice do not pose the same wildlife risk as rats, but have been observed killing seabird chicks, and also have a human health and zoonotic disease risk. Black rats generally avoid water, but have been observed on one of the Aleutian Islands. NMFS has an MMPA section 119 (16 U.S.C. 1388) cooperative agreement (also referred to herein as a co-management agreement) with the ACSPI to share responsibility for the conservation of northern fur seals (and other marine mammal species) and the management of subsistence use (the agreement can be found at <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/alaska/marine-mammal-protection/co-management-marine-mammals-alaska#tribal-government-of-st-paul</E> ). The co-management agreement between NMFS and ACSPI includes shared responsibility for management decisions regarding northern fur seal conservation and subsistence use through a co-management council, which is comprised of equal membership between NMFS and ACSPI. The co-management council process includes regular meetings. The City of St. George, City of Saint Paul (16.10), ACSPI Tribal Code (7.05), and the State of Alaska (5 AAC 92.141) have promulgated regulations preventing rodents. The communities primarily carry the significant burden of preventing rodent invasions on St. Paul and St. George, including implementing increased biosecurity measures when the threat of invasive rodents occurs. ACSPI has assumed the burden of rodent prevention on St. Paul Island since the late 1990s, after initiation of the program by the USFWS in 1993. Today, the prevention efforts include 75 specialized rodenticide and snap trap stations positioned around the harbor, fish processing plant, warehouses, and docks where rodents might escape from an arriving vessel. From 1995 through 1996, nine rats were found on St. Paul Island and all were dead. In 2018, the first live rat was detected in the fish processing plant and, after 10 months of active trapping and multiple detections, the rat was confirmed dead immediately outside the plant. No subsequent sightings occurred over the next 12 months, and no rats were sighted on St. Paul Island until the June 2024 sighting. St. George Island has never had a rat detection, suggesting that its rat prevention stations established around the harbor and landfill have been effective. St. George did respond to an invasive mouse event within the last decade, and St. Paul has had intermittent mouse detections over the past decade. Dutch Harbor, which has rats, is the closest port to the Pribilof Islands and is often the origin for local and regional cargo vessels and barges. Fishing vessels come to St. Paul and St. George for fuel, resupply, and emergencies, many of which originate from Dutch Harbor. The risk of rodent introductions to the Pribilof Islands is also growing primarily due to increased vessel traffic in the sub-arctic and Arctic for tourism. Vessels are the primary source of introductions of rats to islands worldwide (Drake and Hunt 2008). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request From Multi-Agency Invasive Rat Task Force</HD> In June 2024, the ACSPI and USFWS Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge (USFWS AMNWR) contacted NMFS regarding the report of an invasive rat on St. Paul Island. NMFS staff participated in regular task force meetings between ACSPI, USFWS AMNWR, and U.S. Department of Agriculture to discuss the invasive rat situation. Multiple methods of detection have been implemented around the initial observation site on St. Paul Island, including motion sensing trail cameras, chew blocks, bait stations, and snap traps. No additional detections have been observed, but given the abundance of wild food for rats during the summer and fall, the task force expects that these methods may not yield additional detections of the rat if it is on island. After other methods of detection were unsuccessful and after numerous meetings, the task force determined that a dog specially trained in rat detection was the most likely method to detect any rats on St. Paul Island. <HD SOURCE="HD1">The Proposed Rule, Need for This Action, and Expected Effects</HD> This rule would provide an exception to the current regulatory prohibition by allowing the Regional Administrator to authorize the use of rodent detection dogs to respond to any incidents that could otherwise lead to the establishment of a rodent population on any of the Pribilof Islands. NMFS believes the ecological benefits of successfully detecting and eradicating any invasive rodents on the Pribilof Islands outweigh the manageable risks of molestation of the fur seal herd and disease transmission from dogs or their feces. The potential environmental consequences of dogs on the Pribilof Islands include the exposure of indigenous wildlife to canine diseases transmitted through feces or urine and molestation of indigenous wildlife by an uncontrolled dog. After careful revie ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 32k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━