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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 147 / Wednesday, August 4, 2021 / Proposed Rules
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including dispersal and extreme events, both of the metapopulations in East Antarctica along with many other colonies in East Antarctica and in the Bellingshausen Sea-Amundsen Sea sector for which genetics have not been analyzed are projected to decline by more than 90 percent by 2050.
Projections under the moderateemissions scenarios show a similar pattern with an increase in magnitude of decline, which would also likely result in the loss of the two metapopulations in East Antarctica. Emperor penguins may migrate to the Ross Sea or Weddell Sea where some habitat is projected to remain suitable as habitat quality declines in the other sectors. However, the colonies that remain will likely reach carrying capacity, and some colonies provide little potential for population expansion Jenouvrier et al.
2014, p. 716.
Under the high-emissions scenario, the emperor penguin would increasingly lose genetic diversity, because of declines in the Weddell Sea and Ross Sea, which account for the other two known metapopulations.
Colonies within these two metapopulations would decrease in redundancy over time, thus reducing the genetic variation within the two metapopulations. The Ross Sea may be the last stronghold for the species, but even the number of breeding colonies in the Ross Sea have the potential to decline under the high-emissions scenario. Therefore, the genetic diversity of emperor penguins will substantially decrease under the highemissions scenario because the vast majority of all colonies are likely to decline by more than 90 percent, or disappear entirely.
Summary The emperor penguin is currently in high condition because the species has high resiliency, redundancy, and representation. Sixty-one breeding colonies are distributed around the coastline of Antarctica with no indication that there has been a decrease in their range or distribution. Colony size naturally fluctuates, and reproductive success varies from year to year at breeding colonies in relation to both biotic and abiotic factors. However, emperor penguins have high survival rates and reproductive success. Genetic analysis has identified four known metapopulations of emperor penguins, with many areas of Antarctica not yet analyzed.
Sea-ice extent in the Southern Ocean is currently within its natural range of variability. The yearly sea ice extent in the Southern Ocean has a small positive
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but statistically insignificant trend over the 40 years from 1979 to 2018, although the overall increase masks larger, opposing regional differences in trends. The emperor penguins main prey resources are directly related to the extent and duration of sea ice.
Currently, prey abundance appears not to be a limiting factor for emperor penguins.
The Antarctic continent has seen less uniform temperature changes over the past 30 to 50 years, compared to the Arctic, and most of Antarctica has yet to see dramatic warming. Weather and climate are projected to affect the extent and duration of sea ice and, relatedly, prey abundance in Antarctica.
Therefore, climate change presents the most substantial threat facing emperor penguins in the future. Antarctica will be profoundly different in the future compared with today, but the degree of that difference will depend strongly on the magnitude of global climate change.
The magnitude of climate change into the future depends in part on the amount of heat-trapping gases emitted globally and how sensitive the Earths climate is to those emissions, as well as any human responses to climate change by developing adaptation and mitigation policies.
Under all scenarios, sea-ice extent and the global population of emperor penguins are projected to decline in the future; however, the degree and speed of the decline varies substantially by scenario. Accordingly, the resiliency, redundancy, and representation of the emperor penguin will also decrease across all scenarios. The rate and magnitude of decline of the sea-ice conditions and the number of breeding pairs and colonies of emperor penguins varies between scenarios, temporally and spatially. Breeding colonies in the Ross Sea and Weddell Sea sectors, the current strongholds for the species, are projected to retain the most resiliency and have the most stable sea-ice conditions into the future, relative to the Indian Ocean, Bellingshausen SeaAmundsen Sea, and Western Pacific Ocean sectors. The projected decline in the global population of emperor penguins is much less under the lowemissions scenario i.e., the scenarios that model the Paris Accord than under the high-emissions scenario i.e., RCP
8.5. Similarly, redundancy and representation are higher under the lowemissions scenarios compared to the high-emissions scenario because more colonies are projected to be extant.
Redundancy and representation decline at a faster rate than resiliency because the Ross Sea and Weddell Sea sectors contain at least half the global
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population, have a greater initial population abundance compared to the other three sectors, and are projected to have higher-quality sea-ice habitat over a longer time period. These two sectors, and particularly the Ross Sea, are strongholds for the species under every scenario, as the other sectors markedly decline because sea-ice conditions deteriorate.
We note that, by using the SSA
framework to guide our analysis of the scientific information documented in the SSA report, we have not only analyzed individual effects on the species, but we have also analyzed their potential cumulative effects. We incorporate the cumulative effects into our SSA analysis when we characterize the current and future condition of the species. To assess the current and future condition of the species, we undertake an iterative analysis that encompasses and incorporates the threats individually and then accumulates and evaluates the effects of all the factors that may be influencing the species, including threats and conservation efforts. Because the SSA framework considers not just the presence of the factors, but to what degree they collectively influence risk to the entire species, our assessment integrates the cumulative effects of the factors and replaces a standalone cumulative-effects analysis.
Determination of Emperor Penguins Status Section 4 of the Act 16 U.S.C. 1533
and its implementing regulations 50
CFR part 424 set forth the procedures for determining whether a species meets the definition of an endangered species or a threatened species. The Act defines an endangered species as a species in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range, and a threatened species as a species likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range. The Act requires that we determine whether a species meets the definition of an endangered species or a threatened species because of any of the following factors: A The present or threatened destruction, modification, or curtailment of its habitat or range; B
overutilization for commercial, recreational, scientific, or educational purposes; C disease or predation; D
the inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms; or E other natural or manmade factors affecting its continued existence.

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