Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Finding for the Resubmitted Petition To List the Black-Tailed Prairie Dog as Threatened

Resumen

We, the Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), announce our resubmitted 12-month petition finding for the black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus). We conclude that the black-tailed prairie dog is not likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range, pursuant to the Endangered Species Act (Act) of 1973, as amended. Therefore, we find that proposing a rule to list the species is not warranted, and we no longer consider it to be a candidate species for listing. We make this determination because recent distribution, abundance, and trend data indicate that the threats to the species identified in the 12- month finding are not as serious as earlier believed.