Comment on FR Doc # E9-02914

1) Based on the fossil record, the former range of the 'Io included the islands of Kauai, Molokai, and Hawaii (Olson and James 1997, Burney et al. 2001). Given this documented distribution, how can the USFWS justify delisting without re- establishing 'Io on those islands? 2) How can the USFWS justify delisting the 'Io with a population of approximately 3,200 (USFWS 2008), when it is currently considering a petition to list the black- footed albatross as endangered or threatened with a population numbering 54,500 breeding pairs (The International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List 2003) to 64,500 breeding pairs (Brooke 2004) (Federal Register: October 9, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 194)? 3) Although the point estimate of lambda for the 'Io population is greater than 1 (lambda = 1.032, Klavitter et al. 2003), the 95% confidence interval includes values less than 1, and thus there is insufficient statistical evidence to conclude that this population is stable or increasing (Skalski et al. 2006). How can the USFWS delist the species without statistical evidence that the population is stable or increasing?