Fish and Wildlife Service 2014 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), have received an application from Pauma Estates, Inc. (applicant) for a 5- year incidental take permit for the endangered arroyo toad pursuant to the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act). We are requesting comments on the permit application and on the preliminary determination that the proposed HCP qualifies as a ``low-effect'' Habitat Conservation Plan, eligible for a categorical exclusion under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969, as amended. The basis for this determination is discussed in the environmental action statement (EAS) and associated low-effect screening form, which are also available for public review.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, announce a public meeting of the Wildlife and Hunting Heritage Conservation Council (Council). The Council provides advice about wildlife and habitat conservation endeavors that benefit wildlife resources; encourage partnership among the public, the sporting conservation organizations, the States, Native American tribes, and the Federal Government; and benefit recreational hunting.

We (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) have sent an Information Collection Request (ICR) to OMB for review and approval. We summarize the ICR below and describe the nature of the collection and the estimated burden and cost. This information collection is scheduled to expire on December 31, 2014. We may not conduct or sponsor and a person is not required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. However, under OMB regulations, we may continue to conduct or sponsor this information collection while it is pending at OMB.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, invite the public to comment on the following applications to conduct certain activities with endangered species. With some exceptions, the Endangered Species Act (Act) prohibits activities with endangered and threatened species unless a Federal permit allows such activity. The Act also requires that we invite public comment before issuing recovery permits to conduct certain activities with endangered species.

Bexar County and the City of San Antonio (applicants) have applied to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) for an incidental take permit (ITP, TE-48571B-0) under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act). The requested permit would authorize incidental take of nine federally listed species in Bexar County and the City of San Antonio. The applicants have completed a draft Habitat Conservation Plan, referred to as the Southern Edwards Plateau (SEP dHCP), as part of the application package. The Service also announces the availability of a draft Environmental Impact Statement (dEIS), which has been prepared to evaluate the permit application in accordance with the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). We are making the permit application package, including the SEP dHCP and dEIS, available for public review and comment.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, invite the public to comment on the following applications to conduct certain activities with endangered or threatened species. With some exceptions, the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act), prohibits activities with endangered and threatened species unless a Federal permit allows such activity. The Act requires that we invite public comment before issuing these permits.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, announce the availability of the Draft Recovery Plan for the Santa Rosa Plain: Blennosperma bakeri (Sonoma sunshine); Lasthenia burkei (Burke's goldfields); Limnanthes vinculans (Sebastopol meadowfoam); Sonoma County Distinct Population Segment of the California Tiger Salamander (Ambystoma californiense) for public review and comment. The draft recovery plan includes recovery objectives and criteria, and specific actions necessary to achieve removal of the species from the Federal Lists of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants.

Pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969, as amended, and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and State CEQA Guidelines, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) intend to prepare a joint Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report (EIS/EIR) to evaluate impacts regarding construction and operation of the Delta Research Station (DRS) in the San Francisco Bay/ Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary (Bay-Delta), California. The planned DRS would consist of two facilities, a proposed Estuarine Research Station (ERS) and Fish Technology Center (FTC). The USFWS will be the lead Federal agency responsible for coordinating the environmental analysis for the proposed action under NEPA. DWR will be the lead State agency responsible for coordinating the environmental analysis under CEQA. With this notice, USFWS and DWR are announcing the beginning of the scoping process to solicit public comments and identify issues.

In this Candidate Notice of Review (CNOR), we, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), present an updated list of plant and animal species native to the United States that we regard as candidates for or have proposed for addition to the Lists of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended. Identification of candidate species can assist environmental planning efforts by providing advance notice of potential listings, allowing landowners and resource managers to alleviate threats and thereby possibly remove the need to list species as endangered or threatened. Even if we subsequently list a candidate species, the early notice provided here could result in more options for species management and recovery by prompting candidate conservation measures to alleviate threats to the species. The CNOR summarizes the status and threats that we evaluated in order to determine that species qualify as candidates, to assign a listing priority number (LPN) to each species, and to determine whether a species should be removed from candidate status. Additional material that we relied on is available in the Species Assessment and Listing Priority Assignment Forms (species assessment forms) for each candidate species. Overall, this CNOR recognizes 23 new candidates, changes the LPN for one candidate, and removes one species from candidate status. Combined with other decisions for individual species that were published separately from this CNOR in the past year, the current number of species that are candidates for listing is 146. This document also includes our findings on resubmitted petitions and describes our progress in revising the Lists of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants (Lists) during the period October 1, 2013, through September 30, 2014. We request additional status information that may be available for the 146 candidate species identified in this CNOR.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, invite the public to comment on the following applications to conduct certain activities with endangered species, marine mammals, or both. With some exceptions, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) prohibit activities with listed species unless Federal authorization is acquired that allows such activities.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), have received applications from five Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCDs) for enhancement of survival (EOS) permits under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (ESA). The permit applications include proposed programmatic candidate conservation agreements with assurances (CCAAs) for the greater sage-grouse, addressing conservation activities and ranching operations in Baker, Crook, Deschutes, Grant, Lake, Malheur, and southern Union Counties, Oregon. The Service also announces the availability of a draft environmental assessment (EA) addressing the proposed CCAAs and issuance of EOS permits in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended (NEPA). We invite comments from all interested parties on the applications, including the CCAAs and the EA.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, invite the public to comment on the following applications to conduct certain activities with endangered species. With some exceptions, the Endangered Species Act (Act) prohibits activities with endangered and threatened species unless a Federal permit allows such activity. The Act also requires that we invite public comment before issuing recovery permits to conduct certain activities with endangered species.

We, the Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), announce the availability of an incidental take permit (ITP) application and a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP). Vulcan Materials Company, Florida Rock Division (dba Florida Rock Industries, Inc., a subsidiary of Vulcan Materials Company) (applicant), requests an ITP under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act). The applicant's HCP describes the minimization and mitigation measures proposed to address the effects of the project on the sand skink and gopher tortoise. We invite written comments on the ITP application and HCP.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, announce a public meeting of the Trinity Adaptive Management Working Group (TAMWG). The TAMWG is a Federal advisory committee that affords stakeholders the opportunity to give policy, management, and technical input concerning Trinity River (California) restoration efforts to the Trinity Management Council (TMC). The TMC interprets and recommends policy, coordinates and reviews management actions, and provides organizational budget oversight.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), announce the availability of the final comprehensive conservation plan (CCP) and finding of no significant impact (FONSI) for Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), located in Morris County, New Jersey, for public review and comment. In this final CCP, we describe how we will manage the refuge for the next 15 years.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), determine threatened species status under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act), for the Gunnison sage-grouse (Centrocercus minimus), a bird species from southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah. The effect of this regulation will be to add the Gunnison sage-grouse to the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife.

Pursuant to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), we, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), announce our intent to prepare a NEPA document for an anticipated Incidental Take Permit (ITP) application and associated draft habitat conservation plan (HCP) from the North Allegheny Wind, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Duke Energy Generating Services (or Duke Energy Renewables) for operation of their wind facility within occupied habitat of the northern long-eared bat (Myotis septentrionalis) and the federally listed endangered Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis). The northern long-eared bat has recently been proposed for listing as endangered under the ESA. Wind turbine operation has the potential to incidentally take Indiana bats and northern long-eared bats. Therefore, Duke Energy Renewables is developing an ITP application and HCP to address this activity. In advance of receiving the ITP application for this project, the Service is providing this notice to request information from other agencies, tribes, and the public on the scope of the NEPA review and issues to consider in the NEPA analysis and in development of the HCP.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, invite the public to comment on the following applications to conduct certain activities with endangered species. With some exceptions, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) prohibits activities with listed species unless Federal authorization is acquired that allows such activities.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), in accordance with the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act), are amending the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife (List) by adding 20 species of corals: Boulder star coral (Orbicella franksi), lobed star coral (Orbicella annularis), mountainous star coral (Orbicella faveolata), pillar coral (Dendrogyra cylindrus), rough cactus coral (Mycetophyllia ferox), Acropora globiceps, Acropora jacquelineae, Acropora lokani, Acropora pharaonis, Acropora retusa, Acropora rudis, Acropora speciosa, Acropora tenella, Anacropora spinosa, Euphyllia paradivisa, Isopora crateriformis, Montipora australiensis, Pavona diffluens, Porites napopora, and Seriatopora aculeata. These 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.

The North American Wetlands Conservation Council (Council) will meet to select North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) grant proposals for recommendation to the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission (Commission). This meeting is open to the public. The Advisory Group for the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act (NMBCA) grants program (Advisory Group) also will meet. This meeting is also open to the public, and interested persons may present oral or written statements.

We (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) have sent an Information Collection Request (ICR) to OMB for review and approval. We summarize the ICR below and describe the nature of the collection and the estimated burden and cost. We may not conduct or sponsor and a person is not required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number.

The final rule to list the gray wolf as endangered throughout its range in the United States published in 1978. On October 6, 2014, a suspected gray wolf was seen wandering in the area of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Deer hunting season is beginning in this area of Arizona, and it is believed that the wolf may be in danger of possible harm and could accidentally be shot either as a result of misunderstanding of status or misidentification. We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have, under an Endangered Species Act (ESA) permit, authorized qualified researchers to capture, draw blood, and possibly affix a brightly colored GPS radio collar on the suspect wolf and release it back into the general area where it was captured. It is essential for its safety to conduct these actions.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, invite the public to comment on the following applications to conduct certain activities with endangered species, marine mammals, or both. With some exceptions, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) prohibit activities with listed species unless Federal authorization is acquired that allows such activities.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, invite the public to comment on the following applications to conduct certain activities with endangered or threatened species. The Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act), prohibits activities with endangered and threatened species unless a Federal permit allows such activities. Both the Act and the National Environmental Policy Act require that we invite public comment before issuing these permits.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), propose to include the common snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina), Florida softshell turtle (Apalone ferox), smooth softshell turtle (Apalone mutica), and spiny softshell turtle (Apalone spinifera) in Appendix III of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES or Convention), including live and dead whole specimens, and all readily recognizable parts, products, and derivatives. Listing these four native U.S. freshwater turtle species (including their subspecies, except Apalone spinifera atra, which is already included in Appendix I of CITES) in Appendix III of CITES is necessary to allow us to adequately monitor international trade in these species; to determine whether exports are occurring legally, with respect to State and Federal law; and to determine whether further measures under CITES or other laws are required to conserve these species.