Permits for Incidental Take of Eagles and Eagle Nests

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service or USFWS), propose the following revisions to regulations authorizing the issuance of permits for eagle incidental take and eagle nest take. The purpose of these revisions is to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of permitting, facilitate and improve compliance, and increase the conservation benefit for eagles. In addition to continuing to authorize specific permits, we propose the creation of general permits for certain activities under prescribed conditions. We propose a general permit option for qualifying wind-energy generation projects, power line infrastructure, activities that may disturb breeding bald eagles, and bald eagle nest take. We propose to remove the current third-party monitoring requirement from eagle incidental take permits. We also propose to update current permit fees and clarify definitions.