Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Designation of Critical Habitat for the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee

ecies. Peer reviewers also provided updated information related to species biology and general expertise that are incorporated into this final designation. Peer Reviewer Comments (1) Comment: Peer reviewers disagreed with our 50-observation criterion used for delineating critical habitat. They stated this criterion was biased by human survey patterns, this was an arbitrary number, and that we did not provide an adequate rationale for choosing that number. Our response: Critical habitat designations can only contain areas that meet the definition of critical habitat as established by the Act. Critical habitat is, in part, those areas that contain physical or biological features essential to the conservation of the species or as described by the U.S. Supreme Court, those areas that are ``indispensable'' to the conservation of the listed species (Weyerhaeuser Co. v. United States Fish & Wildlife Serv., 586 U.S. 9 (2018)). During our analysis of which areas meet the definition of critical habitat, we must develop criteria that help us delineate these areas that meet the definition of critical habitat. Areas that have had relatively high observations over time likely support the healthiest and most robust remaining populations of rusty patched bumble bee. We concluded that these areas are indispensable to the conservation of the species. We selected 50 observations as a starting poi