[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 178 (Wednesday, September 15, 2010)]
[Notices]
[Pages 56131-56133]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-22861]
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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Fish and Wildlife Service
[FWS-R1-ES-2010-N184; 10120-1113-0000-C2]
Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Draft Revised
Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina)
AGENCY: Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior.
ACTION: Notice of document availability for review and comment.
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SUMMARY: We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, announce the
availability of the Draft Revised Recovery Plan for the Northern
Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina), a northwestern U.S. species
listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (Act). The Act
requires the development of recovery plans for listed species, unless
such a plan would not promote the conservation of a particular species.
Recovery plans help guide conservation efforts by describing actions
considered necessary for the recovery of the species, establishing
criteria for downlisting or delisting listed species, and estimating
time and cost for implementing the measures needed for recovery. We
invite public review and comment on the Draft Revised Recovery Plan.
DATES: We must receive comments on the draft revised recovery plan on
or before November 15, 2010.
ADDRESSES: Electronic copies of the draft revised recovery plan are
available online at: http://www.fws.gov/endangered/species/recovery-plans.html and http://www.fws.gov/species/nso. Printed copies of the
draft revised recovery plan are available by request from the Field
Supervisor, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Oregon Fish and Wildlife
Office, 2600 SE. 98th Avenue, Ste. 100, Portland, OR 97266 (phone: 503/
231-6179). Written comments and materials regarding this recovery plan
should be addressed to the above Portland address or sent by e-mail to:
[email protected].
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Brendan White, Fish and Wildlife
Biologist, at the above address and phone number.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Background
Recovery of endangered or threatened animals and plants is a
primary goal of our endangered species program and the Endangered
Species Act (Act) (16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq.). Recovery means improvement
of the status of listed species to the point at which listing is no
longer necessary under the criteria set out in section 4(a)(1) of the
Act.
The Act requires the development of recovery plans for listed
species unless such a plan would not promote the conservation of a
particular species. Recovery plans help guide conservation efforts by
describing such site-specific management actions as may be necessary to
achieve the plan's goal for the conservation and survival of the
species, establishing criteria for delisting in accordance with the
provisions of ESA Section 4, and estimating the time and cost for
implementing those measures needed to achieve the plan's goal and to
achieve intermediate steps toward that goal.
Section 4(f) of the Act requires that public notice and an
opportunity for public review and comment be provided during recovery
plan development. We will consider all comments we receive during the
public comment period on the substance of the recovery plan. Comments
regarding recovery plan implementation will be forwarded to appropriate
Federal or other entities so that they can take them into account
during the course of implementing recovery actions. Responses to
individual commenters will not be provided, but we will provide a
summary of how we addressed substantive comments in an appendix to the
final recovery plan.
The northern spotted owl (hereafter, spotted owl) was Federally
listed as a threatened species on June 26, 1990 (55 FR 26114). The
current range of the spotted owl extends from southwest British
Columbia through the Cascade Mountains, coastal ranges, and intervening
forested lands in Washington, Oregon, and California, as far south as
Marin County. Spotted owls generally rely on older forested habitats
because such forests contain the structures and characteristics
required for nesting, roosting, and foraging. Features that support
nesting and roosting typically include a moderate-to-high forest canopy
closure (60 to 90 percent); a multi-layered, multi-species forest
canopy with large overstory trees; a high incidence of large trees with
various deformities (large cavities, broken tops, mistletoe infections,
and other evidence of decadence); large snags; large accumulations of
fallen trees and other woody debris on the ground; and sufficient open
space below the forest canopy for spotted owls to fly. Foraging habitat
generally has attributes similar to nesting and roosting habitat, but
may also include areas with less structural diversity and lower canopy
cover.
The spotted owl was listed as threatened throughout its range due
to the loss of suitable habitat to timber harvesting, exacerbated by
catastrophic events such as fire and wind storms. Today we recognize
past habitat loss, current habitat loss, and competition from barred
owls (Strix varia) as the most pressing threats to spotted owl
persistence. The recovery actions in this draft revised recovery plan
are designed to address these and other threats within the range of the
spotted owl.
The draft revised plan prioritizes recovery tasks aimed at: (1)
Maintaining and managing for an adequate amount of spotted owl habitat
across the species' range through active forest restoration and
management, where appropriate; (2) restoring natural processes in the
dry-forest landscapes such that the impacts of habitat loss through
fire are minimized; and (3) conducting large-scale experiments on the
effects of barred owl removal in areas where the two species co-occur.
The goal of this recovery plan is to improve the status of the spotted
owl so it no longer requires the protections of the Endangered Species
Act.
In May of 2008 we published the Recovery Plan for the Northern
Spotted Owl and announced its availability in the Federal Register (May
21, 2008; 73 FR 29471). The 2008 Recovery Plan formed the basis for our
revised designation of spotted owl critical habitat, which we published
in the Federal Register on August 13, 2008 (73 FR 47325). Both the 2008
critical habitat designation and the 2008 recovery plan were challenged
in court. Carpenters' Industrial Council v. Salazar, Case No. 1:08-cv-
01409-EGS (D.DC). In addition, on December 15, 2008, the Inspector
General of the Department of the Interior issued a report entitled
``Investigative Report of The Endangered Species Act and the Conflict
between Science and Policy'' which concluded that the integrity of the
agency decision-making process for the spotted owl recovery plan was
potentially jeopardized by improper political influence. As a result,
the Federal government filed a motion in the lawsuit for remand of the
2008 recovery plan and critical habitat designation. On September 1,
2010, the Court issued an opinion remanding the 2008 recovery plan to
us for issuance of a revised plan within nine months. The Court also
indicated that it will remand the 2008 critical habitat designation
pending resolution of a schedule for a new rulemaking. This notice is
part of the process to consider revisions to the 2008 recovery plan.
The draft revised recovery plan is based on a review of all
relevant biology, including new scientific information that has become
available and critical peer-review comments we received on the 2008
Recovery Plan from three professional scientific associations: The
Wildlife Society, the American Ornithologists' Union, and The Society
for Conservation Biology. Like several previous plans for conserving
and recovering the spotted owl, the 2008 Recovery Plan recommended a
network of large habitat blocks, or Managed Owl Conservation Areas
(MOCAs), intended to support
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long-term recovery of the species. The peer-review comments, however,
were critical of this network for several reasons, including that we
did not use updated modeling techniques to design the network and
assess its efficacy.
The draft revised recovery plan focuses on six main topics: (1)
Adequacy of spotted owl habitat reserves on the west side of the
Cascade Mountains, (2) lack of habitat reserves on the east side of the
Cascade Mountains, (3) the role of non-Federal lands in spotted owl
recovery, (4) adequacy of the existing strategy for conservation of
dispersal habitat, (5) protection of high-quality habitat, and (6)
protection of occupied spotted owl sites.
The draft revised recovery plan is different from the 2008 Recovery
Plan in several respects. We are conducting a scientifically rigorous,
multi-step, range-wide modeling effort to design a habitat conservation
network and assess its ability to provide for long-term recovery of the
spotted owl. Consequently, we are not proposing to rely on the MOCA
network recommended in the 2008 Recovery Plan and will instead use the
model results to help evaluate several habitat conservation network
scenarios. Until the barred owl threat is reduced, the draft revised
plan recommends maintaining all occupied sites and unoccupied high-
quality spotted owl habitat on all lands within the range of the
spotted owl. The draft revised plan also recognizes the possibility of
needing additional conservation contributions from non-Federal lands.
Finally, the draft revised plan affirms our support for forest
restoration management actions that are neutral or beneficial to
spotted owl recovery.
Request for Public Comments
We invite written comments on the draft revised recovery plan.
While all comments we receive by the date specified above will be
considered in developing a final revised recovery plan, we encourage
commenters to focus on those portions of the recovery plan that have
been revised, particularly those topics noted above. Comments and
materials we receive will be available for public inspection, by
appointment, during normal business hours at the Oregon Fish and
Wildlife Office in Portland (see ADDRESSES).
Before including your address, phone number, e-mail address, or
other personal identifying information in your comment, you should be
aware that your entire comment--including your personal identifying
information--may be made 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.
Authority
The authority for this action is section 4(f) of the Endangered
Species Act, 16 U.S.C. 1533 (f).
Dated: September 2, 2010.
David Patte,
Acting Regional Director, Region 1, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
[FR Doc. 2010-22861 Filed 9-14-10; 8:45 am]
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