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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 147 / Wednesday, August 4, 2021 / Proposed Rules Public Hearing Section 4b5 of the Act provides for a public hearing on this proposal, if requested. Requests must be received by the date specified in DATES. Such requests must be sent to the address shown in FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
CONTACT. We will schedule a public hearing on this proposal, if requested, and announce the date, time, and place of the hearing, as well as how to obtain reasonable accommodations, in the Federal Register at least 15 days before the hearing. For the immediate future, we will provide these public hearings using webinars that will be announced on the Services website, in addition to the Federal Register. The use of these virtual public hearings is consistent with our regulations at 50 CFR
424.16c3.
Previous Federal Actions On December 5, 2011, we received a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity to list the emperor penguin as endangered or threatened under the Act.
On January 22, 2014, we published a 90day finding that the petition presented substantial scientific and commercial information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted; that document also initiated a status review for the emperor penguin 79 FR 3559.
Supporting Documents
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We prepared a species status assessment SSA for the emperor penguin, in consultation with species experts Service 2021, entire. The SSA
report represents a compilation of the best scientific and commercial data available concerning the status of the species, including the impacts of past, present, and future factors both negative and beneficial affecting the species. In accordance with our joint policy on peer review published in the Federal Register on July 1, 1994 59 FR

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34270, and our August 22, 2016, memorandum updating and clarifying the role of peer review of listing actions under the Act, we sought the expert opinions of six appropriate specialists regarding the SSA. The Service received six responses. We worked with scientists that have expertise with the species and its habitat, modeling sea ice in Antarctica, and projecting the response of emperor penguins under various climate change emissions scenarios.
I. Proposed Listing Determination Background A thorough review of the taxonomy, life history, and ecology of the emperor penguin is presented in the SSA report Service 2021; available at http
www.regulations.gov under Docket No.
FWSHQES20210043.
Taxonomy The emperor penguin Aptenodytes forsteri is a recognized species ITIS
2020, unpaginated. In 1844, the head of the ornithology section of the British Museum in London George Robert Gray separated emperor penguins from king penguins A. patagonicus, their closest relatives Wienecke et al. 2013, p. 24; ITIS 2020, unpaginated.
The emperor penguin appeared to be panmicticgenetically homogeneous at the continent scalewhich implies the entire species shares a common demographic history Cristofari et al.
2016, p. 2. However, the most recent studies on the genetic differentiation of emperor penguins revealed at least four metapopulations i.e., regional groups of connected populations of a species, with some degree of connectivity among the metapopulations, and very high connectivity between breeding colonies within each metapopulation Younger et al. 2017, p. 3888. However, our understanding of gene flow for emperor
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penguins is incomplete, as not all colonies have been included in genetic analyses. For example, no colonies from West Antarctica have been sampled.
Physical Description Penguins are flightless birds that are highly adapted for the marine environment. They are excellent swimmers and can dive to great depths Australian Antarctic Division 2020, unpaginated. The emperor penguin is the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species Australian Antarctic Division 2020, unpaginated. Adults may weigh up to 40 kilograms 88
pounds and are as tall as 114
centimeters 45 inches National Geographic 2020, unpaginated. Males and females are similar in plumage and size, although males are slightly larger than females. Emperor penguins have large reserves of energy-giving body fat, excellent insulation in the form of several layers of very dense scale-like feathers, and strong claws for gripping the ice Australian Antarctic Division 2020, unpaginated.
Range and Distribution The emperor penguin is endemic to Antarctica and has a pan-Antarctic distribution, meaning the species occurs around the entire continental coastline of Antarctica see figure 1, below, for distribution of breeding colony locations. The species breeds mainly on fast ice, which is sea ice attached or fastened to the coast, between 66 S
and 78 S latitude along the coast of Antarctica Williams 1995, p. 153;
Fretwell and Trathan 2020, p. 7. No gaps larger than 500 kilometers 311
miles occur between colonies, except in front of large ice shelves that are probably unsuitable habitats because of the disturbance of iceberg calving Fretwell and Trathan 2020, p. 10.
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