Pacific Island Fisheries; Modification of Seabird Interaction Mitigation Measures in the Hawaii Deep-Set Longline Fishery

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 665</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 231010-0243]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BL34</RIN> <SUBJECT>Pacific Island Fisheries; Modification of Seabird Interaction Mitigation Measures in the Hawaii Deep-Set Longline Fishery</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this final rule, NMFS modifies its seabird interaction mitigation measures to require federally permitted Hawaii deep-set longline vessels that set fishing gear from the stern to use a tori line ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> bird scaring streamer) in place of the currently required thawed, blue-dyed bait and strategic offal ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> fish, fish parts, or spent bait) discharge when fishing above latitude (lat.) 23° N. This action is expected to improve the overall efficacy and operational practicality of required seabird mitigation measures by reducing seabird bycatch and creating operational and administrative efficiency for fishermen and NMFS. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The final rule is effective April 1, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Copies of the Fishery Ecosystem Plan for Pelagic Fisheries of the Western Pacific are available from the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council, 1164 Bishop St., Suite 1400, Honolulu, HI 96813, telephone 808-522-8220, fax 808-522-8226, or <E T="03">https://www.wpcouncil.org.</E> Copies of the environmental assessment and other supporting documents for this action are available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> or from the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council, 1164 Bishop St., Suite 1400, Honolulu, HI 96813, 808-522-8220, or <E T="03">https://www.wpcouncil.org.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Lynn Rassel, Pacific Islands Regional Office (PIRO) Sustainable Fisheries, 808-725-5036. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> NMFS and the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) manage the Hawaii deep-set longline fishery under the Fishery Ecosystem Plan for Pelagic Fisheries of the Western Pacific (FEP). The implementing Federal regulations for this fishery include a suite of conservation and management requirements. This fishery occasionally catches seabirds; therefore, NMFS implemented a suite of seabird mitigation requirements in 2001 that resulted in the reduction of seabird interactions by 70-90 percent. However, seabird interactions in the Hawaii longline fisheries gradually increased in the subsequent years, with significant increases in black-footed albatross interactions in the deep-set fishery since 2015. Cooperative research by the Council, the Hawaii Longline Association, NMFS Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, and NMFS Pacific Islands Regional Office (PIRO) in 2019-2021 demonstrated that when tori lines are employed in lieu of blue-dyed bait and strategic offal discharge on deep-set longline vessels that set from the stern, albatross making attempts to eat the bait off hooks are 1.5 times less likely, contacts with the bait are 4 times less likely, and captures are 14 times less likely. Furthermore, there is inconclusive evidence that the existing strategic offal discharge requirements reduce seabird interaction risk, and the requirement is associated with heavy administrative burdens to the Pacific Islands Region Observer Program and NOAA Office of Law Enforcement. Similarly, use of blue-dyed bait is burdensome due to the amount of time required to thaw and dye the bait, thawed bait loss from hooks, vessel maintenance costs related to using vats of blue dye, and the administrative burden to monitor and enforce consistent application of blue dye. To reduce seabird bycatch and improve operational and administrative efficiency, NMFS will require deep-set longline vessels that stern-set to employ a tori line system instead of using thawed, blue-dyed bait and strategic offal discharge when fishing north of lat. 23° N. These measures will modify the requirements implemented at 50 CFR 665.815. NMFS also will require that vessels deploy a tori line system that meets required material, length, and position specifications prior to the first hook being set. We note that this action will only modify seabird mitigation requirements for the Hawaii deep-set fishery; however, research on mitigation measures is currently underway in the Hawaii shallow-set fishery. All Hawaii longline vessels will continue to be required to follow other existing seabird handling and release requirements at 50 CFR 665.815(b) and (c) to maximize the chances of post-release survival of seabirds that are caught alive, and to be certified for the completion of an annual protected species workshop conducted by NMFS (50 CFR 665.814). All other measures applicable to longline fisheries under the FEP will remain unchanged. This rule and related tori line design guidelines are consistent with seabird mitigation requirements set forth by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (see <E T="03">https://www.iattc.org/PDFFiles/Resolutions/IATTC/_English/C-11-02-Active_Seabirds.pdf</E> and <E T="03">www.wcpfc.int/doc/wcpfc15-2018-dp16/seabird-interaction-mitigation-amendment-cmm-2017-06</E> ). The rule will also revise 50 CFR 665.802 to clarify prohibitions for vessels with Hawaii longline limited access permits. Specifically, the rule will improve descriptions of which vessels are subject to the prohibitions. The rule will also correct the omission of a prohibition for side-setting ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> setting the mainline from the port or starboard side of the vessel at least one meter from the stern) without a bird curtain and weighted branch lines. You may find additional background information on this action in the preamble to the proposed rule published on October 17, 2023 (88 FR 71523). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments and Responses</HD> On October 17, 2023, NMFS published a proposed rule, an Environmental Assessment (EA), and Regulatory Impact Review (RIR) for public comment (88 FR 71523). The comment period ended on November 16, 2023. NMFS received a comment letter from one nonprofit organization, the American Bird Conservancy (ABC). In general, ABC supported the proposed rule. There were no comments directed at analyses presented in the EA or the RIR. We summarize and respond to ABC's comments here. <E T="03">Comment 1:</E> ABC expressed support for the proposed rule, specifically the use of tori lines in place of the currently required thawed, blue-dyed bait and strategic offal discharge when fishing above lat. 23° N, and the housekeeping correction to reinstate the prohibition for side setting without a bird curtain. <E T="03">Response:</E> NMFS agrees and will continue to sustainably manage and regulate Federal fisheries to minimize bycatch, bycatch mortality, and interactions with protected species, including seabirds, consistent with applicable law. <E T="03">Comment 2:</E> ABC expressed support of a requirement to prohibit offal discharge during setting operations and therefore a preference for Alternative 3 in the EA which includes a modification of, rather that the removal of, the offal discharge requirement to an offal management requirement. <E T="03">Response:</E> The main difference between Alternatives 2 and 3 is whether the updated offal management measure would be implemented through a non-regulatory best practices annual training (Alternative 2) or a regulatory requirement (Alternative 3). As described in detail in EA section 4.2.2, the Council recommended Alternative 2 because it determined that fishing operations in the deep-set longline fishery are already in line with best practices for offal management because offal is not generated during the set. Offal would typically be generated and discharged in the deep-set longline fishery during the haul, and would not be saved for discharge during the set in the absence of the existing strategic offal discharge requirement. Under Alternative 2, fishery participants are not likely to retain offal and spent bait from hauling operations, so there would be no offal or spent bait available during setting operations to discharge. Even without a requirement, offal discharge during setting operations would be an atypical occurrence, and it is not expected to appreciably increase seabird interactions. Furthermore, regulating best practices under Alternative 3 is associated with an increased administrative burden to monitor and enforce the regulation. Under Alternative 2, best practices will be taught in the protected species workshop, which is required annually for all deep-set longline vessel owners and captains. NMFS will be able to update and adapt the best practices training in accordance with the best scientific information available, in a manner that is more efficient and responsive to evolving science than changing a regulatory requirement. In this way, NMFS will be able to disseminate best practices to the fisheries' participants with less administrative burden and in a timelier manner than through the regulatory process. This rule as described in EA Alternative 2, achieves the objective by reducing seabird interactions with the fishery while minimizing unnecessary regulation. <E T="03">Comment 3:</E> ABC recommended encouraging the use of tori lines in the deep-set longline fishery south of lat. 23° N for the sake of providing international leadership. <E T="03">Response:</E> Less than 14 percent of observed seabird interactions have occurred in the deep-set longline fish ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━