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The double-crested cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus) is a fish-eating migratory bird that is distributed across a large portion of North America. Populations have increased in recent decades causing issues related to human health and safety, property damage, and concern for co-nesting threatened or endangered species. Cormorants also threaten aquaculture, and the Service has collaborated with State fish and wildlife agencies, tribes, and Federal partners in addressing conflicts between cormorants and wild-stocked fish. Accordingly, we intend to initiate rulemaking on the following potential long-term solutions. We are considering: (1) Establishing a new permit for State wildlife agencies to receive authorization for cormorant management and control activities intended to relieve or prevent impacts from cormorants on wild and stocked fisheries, (2) establishing an aquaculture depredation order, which would allow take of cormorants under prescribed conditions at aquaculture facilities without the need to acquire an individual permit, or (3) some combination of the prior two options.