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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 199 / Tuesday, October 19, 2021 / Proposed Rules habitat, are not essential to the conservation of the species. Fishers are less likely to den in areas with high levels of human activity, such as immediately adjacent to human structures Spencer et al. 2017, p. 4.
Furthermore, areas surrounding homes and buildings generally have been and will be treated heavily to reduce the risk of fire to lives and property. These intense fuels treatments such as removing all ground vegetation within the defensible space surrounding a building typically result in reduced habitat quality for fishers. We used housing density data from Cal Fire to identify areas with greater than zero housing units per acre and removed these areas of low quality habitat from the proposed designation.
Mapping Critical Habitat Units Consistent with previous analyses conducted for the Southern Sierra Nevada Fisher Conservation Assessment Spencer et al. 2015, pp. 4152, A4
A5, six discrete units including one unitUnit 3that is subdivided into three subunits were delineated based on evidence of genetic discontinuity and gaps between patches of modeled denning habitat, typically associated with major river canyons. Unit 1 Kern Plateau and Unit 2 South Sequoia were separated based on a break in modeled habitat continuity along the Kern River Canyon. Unit 2 abuts Unit 3
North Sequoia, but the units were delineated based on evidence of genetic discontinuity Tucker et al. 2014, pp.
129132; Spencer et al. 2015, pp. 10, 46. Consistent with Spencer et al.
2015, pp. 41, 46, we used Bear Creek in Mountain Home Demonstration State Forest to separate Units 2 and 3
Subunit 3A. Breaks in contiguous patches of denning habitat separated Subunit 3A Dillonwood Grove from Subunit 3B Homes NoseParadise Peak, and Subunit 3B from Subunit 3C
Muir Grove. Unit 3 Subunit 3C and Unit 4 South Sierra are separated by a gap in suitable habitat and evidence of genetic subdivision associated with the Kings River Canyon Tucker et al. 2014,
pp. 129132. Unit 4 and Unit 5 North Sierra are separated by the San Joaquin River and the associated discontinuity of suitable fisher habitat. Tucker et al.
2014, pp. 131132 found slight genetic separation between the areas mapped as Unit 4 and Unit 5. Finally, Unit 5 and Unit 6 Stanislaus are separated by the break in modeled habitat along the Merced River.
Finally, we used a geoprocessing tool to smooth the boundaries of the units to improve implementation of the proposed designation. This will simplify analyses to determine if a particular location or project area falls within the designation. This exercise had a negligible impact on the area proposed as critical habitat.
When determining proposed critical habitat boundaries, we made every effort to avoid including developed areas such as lands covered by buildings including 100 feet 30.5 meters of defensible space surrounding buildings, pavement, and other structures because such lands lack the physical and biological feature necessary for the SSN DPS of fisher. The scale of the maps we prepared under the parameters for publication within the Code of Federal Regulations may not reflect the exclusion of such developed lands. Additionally, the dataset we relied on to remove human structures from the proposed designation may have inadvertently omitted some houses and communities. Any such lands inadvertently left inside critical habitat boundaries shown on the maps of this proposed rule have been excluded by text in the proposed rule and are not proposed for designation as critical habitat. Therefore, if the critical habitat is finalized as proposed, a Federal action involving these lands would not trigger section 7 consultation with respect to critical habitat and the requirement of no adverse modification unless the specific action would affect the physical and biological feature in the adjacent critical habitat.
We propose to designate as critical habitat lands that we have determined were occupied at the time of listing and
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that contain the physical and biological feature that is essential to support lifehistory processes of the species.
Six units including one unitUnit 3that is subdivided into three subunits are proposed for designation based on the physical and biological feature being present to support the fishers life-history processes. All of the units contain the identified physical and biological feature and all characteristics of the physical and biological feature and support multiple life-history processes.
The proposed critical habitat designation is defined by the maps, as modified by any accompanying regulatory text, presented at the end of this document under Proposed Regulation Promulgation. We include more detailed information on the boundaries of the critical habitat designation in the preamble of this document. We will make the coordinates or plot points or both on which each map is based available to the public on http
www.regulations.gov at Docket No.
FWSR8ES20210060.
Proposed Critical Habitat Designation We are proposing six units as critical habitat for the SSN DPS of fisher. All units are considered occupied at the time of listing. The critical habitat areas we describe below constitute our current best assessment of areas that meet the definition of critical habitat for the SSN DPS of fisher. The six areas we propose as critical habitat from south to north are: 1 Kern Plateau; 2 South Sequoia; 3 North Sequoia, including three subunits; 4 South Sierra; 5
North Sierra; and 6 Stanislaus. Table 1
shows the proposed critical habitat units and the approximate area of each unit. Units 4 and 5 overlap with portions of designated critical habitat for the federally threatened Yosemite toad Anaxyrus canorus see 50 CFR
17.95d and 81 FR 59046, August 26, 2016.

TABLE 1PROPOSED CRITICAL HABITAT UNITS FOR THE SSN DPS OF FISHER SOUTH TO NORTH

jspears on DSK121TN23PROD with PROPOSALS1

Area estimates reflect all land within critical habitat unit boundaries.
Size of unit in acres hectares
Critical habitat unit
Land ownership by type
Unit 1Kern Plateau

Federal
State
Tribal
Unclassified/Private

64,131 25,953
0 0
654 265

Total

64,785 26,218

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Occupied?
Yes