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jbell on DSKJLSW7X2PROD with PROPOSALS

Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 171 / Wednesday, September 8, 2021 / Proposed Rules No serious injury or mortality would be expected even in the absence of the proposed mitigation measures. For all species, no Level A harassment is anticipated given the nature of the activities, i.e., much of the anticipated activity would involve noises below thresholds and visual disturbance from tens of meters away, and measures designed to minimize the possibility of injury. The potential for injury is small for pinnipeds, and is expected to be essentially eliminated through implementation of the planned mitigation measures.
Effects on individuals that are taken by Level B harassment, on the basis of reports in the literature as well as monitoring from other similar activities, will likely be limited to reactions such as alerts or movements away from the lighthouse structure. Most likely, individuals will simply move away from the sound source and be temporarily displaced from the areas.
Reporting from prior years of these activities has similarly reported no apparently consequential behavioral reactions or long-term effects on marine mammal populations as noted above.
Repeated exposures of individuals to relatively low levels of sound and visual disturbance outside of preferred habitat areas are unlikely to significantly disrupt critical behaviors. Thus, even repeated Level B harassment of some small subset of the overall stock is unlikely to result in any significant realized decrease in viability for the affected individuals, and thus would not result in any adverse impact to the stock as a whole. Level B harassment will be reduced to the level of least practicable adverse impact through use of mitigation measures described herein and, if sound and visual disturbance produced by project activities is sufficiently disturbing, animals are likely to simply avoid the area while the activity is occurring.
In combination, we believe that these factors, as well as the available body of evidence from other similar activities, demonstrate that the potential effects of the specified activities will have only minor, short-term effects on individuals.
The specified activities are not expected to impact rates of recruitment or survival and will therefore not result in population-level impacts.
In summary and as described above, the following factors primarily support our preliminary determination that the impacts resulting from this activity are not expected to adversely affect the species or stock through effects on annual rates of recruitment or survival:
No mortality is anticipated or authorized.

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No important habitat areas have been identified within the project area.
For all species, NWSR is a very small and peripheral part of their range.
Monitoring reports from prior activities at the site have documented little to no effect on individuals of the same species impacted by the specified activities.
Based on the analysis contained herein of the likely effects of the specified activity on marine mammals and their habitat, and taking into consideration the implementation of the proposed monitoring and mitigation measures, NMFS preliminarily finds that the total marine mammal take from the proposed activity will have a negligible impact on all affected marine mammal species or stocks.
Small Numbers As noted above, only small numbers of incidental take may be authorized under Sections 101a5A of the MMPA for specified activities other than military readiness activities. The MMPA does not define small numbers and so, in practice, where estimated numbers are available, NMFS compares the number of individuals taken to the most appropriate estimation of abundance of the relevant species or stock in our determination of whether an authorization is limited to small numbers of marine mammals. When the predicted number of individuals to be taken is fewer than one third of the species or stock abundance, the take is considered to be of small numbers.
Additionally, other qualitative factors may be considered in the analysis, such as the temporal or spatial scale of the activities.
The amount of take NMFS proposes to authorize is below one third of the estimated stock abundance of all species in fact, take of individuals is less than 10 percent of the abundance of all of the affected stocks except Steller sea lions, see Table 3. This is likely a conservative estimate because they assume all takes are of different individual animals which is likely not the case, especially within individual trips. Many individuals seen within a single multi-day trip are likely to be the same across consecutive days, but PSOs would count them as separate takes across days.
Based on the analysis contained herein of the proposed activity including the proposed mitigation and monitoring measures and the anticipated take of marine mammals, NMFS preliminarily finds that small numbers of marine mammals will be taken relative to the population size of the affected species or stocks.

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Unmitigable Adverse Impact Analysis and Determination There are no relevant subsistence uses of the affected marine mammal stocks or species implicated by this action.
Therefore, NMFS has determined that the total taking of affected species or stocks would not have an unmitigable adverse impact on the availability of such species or stocks for taking for subsistence purposes.
Adaptive Management The regulations governing the take of marine mammals incidental to Society lighthouse repair and tour operation activities would contain an adaptive management component.
The reporting requirements associated with this proposed rule are designed to provide NMFS with monitoring data from the prior years to allow consideration of whether any changes are appropriate. The use of adaptive management allows NMFS to consider new information from different sources to determine with input from the Society regarding practicability on an annual basis if mitigation or monitoring measures should be modified including additions or deletions. Mitigation measures could be modified if new data suggests that such modifications would have a reasonable likelihood of reducing adverse effects to marine mammals and if the measures are practicable.
Additionally, monitoring or reporting measures may be modified if appropriate and, in this case, the rule specifies quarterly monitoring and reporting requirements for the first year, which may subsequently be modified to annual requirements, based on NMFS
evaluation of the first three reports.
The following are some of the possible sources of applicable data to be considered through the adaptive management process: 1 Results from monitoring reports, as required by MMPA authorizations; 2 results from general marine mammal and sound research; and 3 any information which reveals that marine mammals may have been taken in a manner, extent, or number not authorized by these regulations or subsequent LOAs.
Endangered Species Act ESA
Section 7a2 of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 ESA: 16 U.S.C.
1531 et seq. requires that each Federal agency insure that any action it authorizes, funds, or carries out is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any endangered or threatened species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of designated critical habitat. To ensure
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