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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 243 / Wednesday, December 22, 2021 / Proposed Rules
data regarding the status of the cactus ferruginous pygmy-owl, including an assessment of the potential threats to the subspecies. The SSA report does not represent a decision by the Service on whether the subspecies should be proposed for listing as an endangered or threatened species under the Act.
However, it does provide the scientific basis that informs our regulatory decisions, which involve the further application of standards within the Act and its implementing regulations and policies. The following is a summary of the key results and conclusions from the SSA report; the full SSA report can be found under Docket No. FWSR2ES
20210098 at http
www.regulations.gov and at https
www.fws.gov/southwest/es/arizona/.
To assess the cactus ferruginous pygmy-owls viability, we used the three conservation biology principles of resiliency, redundancy, and representation Shaffer and Stein 2000, pp. 306310. Briefly, resiliency supports the ability of the species to withstand environmental and demographic stochasticity for example, wet or dry, warm or cold years, redundancy supports the ability of the species to withstand catastrophic events for example, droughts, large pollution events, and representation supports the ability of the species to adapt over time to long-term changes in the environment for example, climate changes. In general, the more resilient and redundant a species is and the more representation it has, the more likely it is to sustain populations over time, even under changing environmental conditions. Using these principles, we identified the species ecological requirements for survival and reproduction at the individual, population, and species levels, and described the beneficial and risk factors influencing the species viability.
The SSA process can be categorized into three sequential stages. During the first stage, we evaluate the individual species life-history needs. The next stage involves an assessment of the historical and current condition of the species demographics and habitat characteristics, including an explanation of how the species arrived at its current condition. The final stage of the SSA involves making predictions about the species responses to positive and negative environmental and anthropogenic influences. Throughout all of these stages, we use the best available information to characterize viability as the ability of a species to sustain populations in the wild over time. We use this information to inform our regulatory decision.

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Summary of Biological Status and Threats In this discussion, we review the biological condition of the cactus ferruginous pygmy-owl and its resources, and the threats that influence the subspecies current and future condition, in order to assess the subspecies overall viability and the risks to that viability. The overall geographic range of the pygmy-owl is very large approximately 140,625
square miles 364,217 square kilometers and covers two countries, the United States and Mexico. To assist in our analysis, we divided the overall geographic range of the pygmy-owl into five analysis units based upon biological, vegetative, political, climatic, geographical, and conservation differences. The five analysis units are:
Arizona, northern Sonora, western Mexico, Texas, and northeastern Mexico. We analyzed each of these analysis units individually and looked at a combined outcome across the entire range of the subspecies.
Threats We reviewed the potential risk factors that could be affecting the pygmy-owl now and in the future including:
Climate change and climate condition Factor E, habitat loss and fragmentation Factor A, human activities and disturbance Factors B
and E, human-caused mortality Factors B and E, disease and predation Factor C, and small population size Factor E.
In this proposed rule, we will discuss only those factors in detail that could meaningfully impact the status of the subspecies. Those risks that are not known to have effects on pygmy-owl populations, such as disease, are not discussed here but are evaluated in the SSA report. The primary risk factors affecting the current and future status of the pygmy-owl are: 1 Habitat loss and fragmentation Factor A, and 2
climate change and climate conditions Factor E. For a detailed description of the threats analysis, please refer to the Species Status Assessment report USFWS 2021, entire.
Habitat Loss and Fragmentation Pygmy-owls require habitat elements, such as mature woodlands, that include appropriate cavities for nest sites, adequate structural diversity and cover, and a diverse prey base. Urbanization, invasive species, and agricultural or forest production are all leading to a reduction in the extent of habitat and an increase in habitat fragmentation throughout the geographic range of the subspecies.

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Urbanization Urbanization causes permanent impacts on the landscape that potentially result in the loss and alteration of pygmy-owl habitat.
Residential, commercial, and infrastructure development replace and fragment areas of native vegetation resulting in the loss of available pygmyowl habitat and habitat connectivity needed to support pygmy-owl dispersal and demographic support exchange of individuals and rescue effect of population groups.
Urbanization can also have detrimental effects on wildlife habitat by increasing the channelization or disruption of riverine corridors, the proliferation of exotic species, and the fragmentation of remaining patches of natural vegetation into smaller and smaller pieces that are unable to support viable populations of native plants or animals Ewing et al. 2005, pp. 12;
Nabhan and Holdsworth 1998, p. 2.
Human-related mortality e.g., shooting, collisions, and predation by pets also increases as urbanization increases Banks 1979, pp. 12; Churcher and Lawton 1987, p. 439. Development of roadways and their contribution to habitat loss and fragmentation is a particularly widespread impact of urbanization Nickens 1991, p. 1. Data from Arizona and Mexico indicate that roadways and other open areas lacking cover affect pygmy-owl dispersal Flesch and Steidl 2007, pp. 67; Abbate et al. 1999, p. 54. Nest success and juvenile survival were also lower at pygmy-owl nest sites closer to large roadways, suggesting that habitat quality may be reduced in those areas Flesch and Steidl 2007, pp. 67.
From 2010 to 2020, population growth rates increased in all Arizona counties where the pygmy-owl occurs:
Pima 9.3 percent; Pinal 25.7 percent;
and Santa Cruz 13 percent OEO 2021, unpaginated. Many cities and towns within the historical distribution of the pygmy-owl in Arizona experienced substantial growth between April 2010
and July 2019: Casa Grande 20.7
percent; City of Eloy 17.8 percent;
City of Florence 7.7 percent; Town of Marana 41.9 percent; Town of Oro Valley 12.2 percent; and the Town of Sahuarita 20.9 percent U.S. Census Bureau 2021, unpaginated.Urban expansion and human population growth trends in Arizona are expected to continue into the future. The Maricopa-Pima-Pinal County areas of Arizona are expected to grow by as much as 132 percent between 2005 and 2050, creating rural-urban edge effects across thousands of acres of pygmy-owl
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