Department of the Interior April 8, 2019 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This notice advises the public that members of the Hart Family 2003 Trust (applicant) have applied to the Fish and Wildlife Service for a 50-year enhancement of survival permit under the Endangered Species Act. If granted, the permit will authorize the take of both the northern spotted owl and the gray wolf that may occur incidental to land management activities in connection with ongoing livestock grazing and forest management operations that can restore, enhance, or maintain habitat for the species on the Butte Creek Ranch in Siskiyou County, California. The documents available for review and comment are the applicant's safe harbor agreement and our draft environmental action statement, supporting a categorical exclusion under the National Environmental Policy Act. We invite comments from the public and Federal, Tribal, State, and local governments.

The Secretary of the Interior seeks nominations for individuals to be considered to fill one vacancy to serve as an ex officio non-voting representative on the North American Wetlands Conservation Council (Council). The Council operates under statutory procedures established under the North American Wetlands Conservation Act. Council members review and recommend grant funding for wetland protection and restoration projects in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The Council provides recommendations to the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission, which provides final funding approval for these projects.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), are amending the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife (List) by adding 16 species (gulf grouper, island grouper, common guitarfish, blackchin guitarfish, daggernose shark, Brazilian guitarfish, striped smoothhound shark, spiny angelshark, Argentine angelshark, narrownose smoothhound shark, Maui dolphin, Hector's dolphin, giant manta ray, oceanic whitetip shark, Taiwanese humpback dolphin, and chambered nautilus) and by removing one species (Puget Sound-Georgia Basin distinct population segment (DPS) of canary rockfish). We are also updating the entries for the following six species by adding critical habitat designation citations: Gulf of Maine DPS of Atlantic sturgeon, New York Bight DPS of Atlantic sturgeon, Chesapeake Bay DPS of Atlantic sturgeon, South Atlantic DPS of Atlantic sturgeon, Carolina DPS of Atlantic sturgeon, and Main Hawaiian Islands Insular DPS of false killer whale. Lastly, we are updating the genus name for the Saimaa subspecies of ringed seal. The above amendments are based on previously published determinations by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce, which has jurisdiction for these species. We are also adding nonsubstantive corrections to entries for 10 other species on the List: Three foreign coral species, dusky sea snake, Banggai cardinalfish, the Tanzanian DPS of African coelacanth, Nassau grouper, and three angelshark species. We added these 10 species to the List in 2016, but the entries did not include the Federal Register citations for the final listing rule, as is our standard practice when we add new entries to the List. The changes being made via this rule simply provide information that may be helpful to members of the public who are interested in tracking the regulatory history of these species.