Federal Register / Vol. 75, No. 178 / Wednesday, September 15, 2010 / Notices 56131 

species of native shrimp. The refuge’s 

volunteer program administers collegelevel educational programs and habitat 

restoration activities on the unit. The 

unit is closed to the general public. 

Background 

The CCP Process 

The National Wildlife Refuge System 

Administration Act of 1966 (16 U.S.C. 

668dd–668ee) (Refuge Administration 

Act), as amended by the National 

Wildlife Refuge System Improvement 

Act of 1997, requires us to develop a 

CCP for each national wildlife refuge. 

The purpose for developing a CCP is to 

provide refuge managers with a 15-year 

plan for achieving refuge purposes and 

contributing toward the mission of the 

National Wildlife Refuge System, 

consistent with sound principles of fish 

and wildlife management, conservation, 

legal mandates, and our policies. In 

addition to outlining broad management 

direction on conserving wildlife and 

their habitats, CCPs identify wildlifedependent recreational opportunities 

available to the public, including 

opportunities for hunting, fishing, 

wildlife observation and photography, 

and environmental education and 

interpretation. We will review and 

update the CCP at least every 15 years 

in accordance with the Refuge 

Administration Act. 

Public Outreach 

We began the public scoping phase of 

the CCP planning process by publishing 

a Notice of Intent (NOI) in the Federal 

Register on December 1, 2008 (73 FR 

72826), announcing our intention to 

complete a CCP/EA for the James 

Campbell and Pearl Harbor National 

Wildlife Refuges. Simultaneously, we 

released Planning Update 1. We invited 

the public to two open house meetings 

and requested public comments in the 

NOI and in Planning Update 1. We held 

the public open house meetings, in 

Pearl City, Hawai‘i, on December 9, 

2008, and in Kahuku, Hawai‘i, on 

January 8, 2009. In Planning Update 2, 

distributed in June 2009, we provided a 

summary of the comments we received 

and described refuge resources. We 

considered all of the public comments 

we received to date during development 

of the Draft CCP/EA. We will announce 

the public comment period for the 

James Campbell National Wildlife 

Refuge Draft CCP/EA in fall 2010. 

Draft CCP Alternatives We Are 

Considering 

We drafted two alternatives for 

managing the Pearl Harbor Refuge. 

Under both alternatives entry into the 

fenced portions of the refuge units will 

continue by special use permit. The 

Betty Bliss Memorial Overlook will be 

constructed outside the Honouliuli 

Unit’s fence, to provide year-round 

interpretation, wildlife viewing, and 

photography opportunities. The coastal 

foot trail outside the Kalaeloa Unit’s 

fence will remain open to the public for 

shoreline fishing. Both alternatives 

would protect threatened and 

endangered species and cultural 

resources. Brief descriptions of the 

alternatives follow. 

Alternative A 

Under Alternative A, we would 

continue the current level of 

management. On the wetlands of the 

Honouliuli and Waiawa Units, we 

would continue to control predators and 

manage and protect habitat for 

endangered Hawaiian waterbirds, as 

part of the Statewide effort to 

implement the Hawaiian Waterbird 

Recovery Plan. Under Alternative A, 

control of invasive plant species would 

be modest, and intensive predator 

control would continue. On the 

Kalaeloa Unit, we would continue to 

restore and manage endangered plants 

and control invasive plants at the 

current level. Protection would continue 

for 14 existing anchialine pools on the 

Kalaeloa Unit, but no additional pools 

would be restored. We would continue 

to cooperate with the Bishop Museum’s 

effort to catalog avian and other fossil 

remains from the pools. 

Alternative B 

Under Alternative B, our preferred 

alternative, we would focus 

management efforts at the Kalaeloa Unit 

on increasing the restoration of native 

and rare coralline plain habitat. We 

would increase the existing 25-acre 

restoration area to 37 acres. Controlling 

and reducing invasive plants, and 

establishing native plants, including the 

‘akoko and ‘Ewa hinahina, would be 

emphasized. We would develop a foot 

trail system, protect 14 existing 

anchialine pools, identify up to 30 

additional pool sites for potential 

restoration, and continue with 

experimental translocation of 

endangered damselflies (pinapinao) to 

suitable habitat in the anchialine pools. 

We would also expand volunteer, 

research, and environmental education 

opportunities, including working with 

the Bishop Museum and the 

Smithsonian Institute to pursue an indepth paleontological study of the entire 

unit. 

On the Honouliuli and Waiawa Units, 

our focus would be on an increased 

level of wetland management to 

improve the units’ overall capacity to 

support endangered waterbirds. Under 

this Alternative B, water level and 

vegetation management, invasive 

species control, including predator 

control, would be improved or 

increased as part of the Statewide effort 

to implement the Hawaiian Waterbird 

Recovery Plan. On the Honouliuli Unit, 

we would remove mangrove on 5 acres 

to improve and maintain intertidal 

mudflat habitat, and determine the 

feasibility of installing a predator-proof 

fence. On the Waiawa Unit, we would 

work with partners and neighbors to 

determine the feasibility of developing 

an additional refuge overlook. 

Public Availability of Documents 

We encourage you to stay involved in 

the CCP planning process by reviewing 

and commenting on the proposals we 

have developed in the Draft CCP/EA. 

Copies of the Draft CCP/EA are available 

by request from David Ellis or via the 

Internet (see ADDRESSES). 

Next Steps 

After this comment period ends, we 

will analyze the comments and address 

them in the final CCP/EA. 

Public Availability of Comments 

Before including your address, 

telephone 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. 

Dated: September 10, 2010. 

David Patte, 

Acting Regional Director, Region 1, Portland, 

Oregon. 

[FR Doc. 2010–23102 Filed 9–14–10; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4310–55–P 

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. 


srobinson on DSKHWCL6B1PROD with NOTICES
56132 Federal Register / Vol. 75, No. 178 / Wednesday, September 15, 2010 / Notices 

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: 

NSORPComments@fws.gov. 

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 moderateto-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 decisionmaking 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 


srobinson on DSKHWCL6B1PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 75, No. 178 / Wednesday, September 15, 2010 / Notices 56133 

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, rangewide 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] 

BILLING CODE 4310–55–P 

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

Fish and Wildlife Service 

[FWS–R4–R–2010–N035; 40136–1265–0000– 

S3] 

Savannah Coastal Refuges’ Complex, 

GA and SC 

AGENCY: Fish and Wildlife Service, 

Interior. 

ACTION: Notice of availability: Draft 

comprehensive conservation plan and 

environmental assessment; request for 

comments. 

SUMMARY: We, the Fish and Wildlife 

Service (Service), announce the 

availability of a draft comprehensive 

conservation plan and environmental 

assessment (Draft CCP/EA) for the 

Savannah Coastal Refuges’ Complex 

(Complex) for public review and 

comment. In this Draft CCP/EA, we 

describe the alternative we propose to 

use to manage this Complex for the 15 

years following approval of the final 

CCP. The Complex consists of the 

following refuges: Pinckney Island; 

Savannah; Tybee; Wassaw; Harris Neck; 

Blackbeard Island; and Wolf Island. A 

separate CCP was prepared for the Wolf 

Island National Wildlife Refuge. 

DATES: To ensure consideration, we 

must receive your written comments by 

October 15, 2010. 

ADDRESSES: You may obtain a copy of 

the Draft CCP/EA by contacting Ms. 

Laura Housh, via U.S. mail at 

Okefenokee NWR, 2700 Suwannee 

Canal Road, Folkston, GA 31537, or via 

e-mail at laura_housh@fws.gov. 

Alternatively, you may download the 

document from our Internet site at 

http://southeast.fws.gov/planning under 

‘‘Draft Documents.’’ Submit comments 

on the Draft CCP/EA to the above postal 

address or e-mail address. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. 

Laura Housh, Refuge Planner, 

telephone: 912/496–7366, ext. 244; fax: 

912/496–3322. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Introduction 

With this notice, we continue the CCP 

process for the Savannah Coastal 

Refuges’ Complex. We started the 

process through a notice in the Federal 

Register on May 19, 2008 (73 FR 28838). 

For more about the Complex and this 

process, please see that notice. 

Background 

The CCP Process 

The National Wildlife Refuge System 

Administration Act of 1966 (16 U.S.C. 

668dd–668ee), as amended by the 

National Wildlife Refuge System 

Improvement Act of 1997, requires us to 

develop a CCP for each national wildlife 

refuge. The purpose for developing a 

CCP is to provide refuge managers with 

a 15-year plan for achieving refuge 

purposes and contributing toward the 

mission of the National Wildlife Refuge 

System, consistent with sound 

principles of fish and wildlife 

management, conservation, legal 

mandates, and our policies. In addition 

to outlining broad management 

direction on conserving wildlife and 

their habitats, CCPs identify wildlifedependent recreational opportunities 

available to the public, including 

opportunities for hunting, fishing, 

wildlife observation, wildlife 

photography, and environmental 

education and interpretation. We will 

review and update the CCP at least 

every 15 years in accordance with the 

Administration Act. 

CCP Alternatives, Including our 

Proposed Alternative 

We developed three alternatives for 

managing the Complex and chose 

Alternative B as the proposed 

alternative. A full description of each 

alternative is in the Draft CCP/EA. We 

summarize each alternative below. 

Alternative A—No Action Alternative 

This alternative is the ‘‘no-action’’ or 

‘‘status quo’’ alternative in which no 

major management changes would be 

initiated by the Service. Management 

emphasis would continue to focus on 

maintaining biological integrity of 

habitats found on each refuge. Under 

this alternative, we would protect and 

maintain all refuge lands, primarily 

focusing on the needs of threatened and 

endangered species, with additional 

emphasis on the needs of migratory 

birds and resident wildlife. 

We would continue mandated 

activities for protection of federally 


srobinson on DSKHWCL6B1PROD with NOTICES