Magnuson-Stevens Act Provisions; Fisheries Off West Coast States; Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery; 2023-2024 Biennial Specifications and Management Measures; Inseason Adjustments

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 660</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 221206-0261]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BM97</RIN> <SUBJECT>Magnuson-Stevens Act Provisions; Fisheries Off West Coast States; Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery; 2023-2024 Biennial Specifications and Management Measures; Inseason Adjustments</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; inseason adjustments to biennial groundfish management measures. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This final rule announces routine inseason adjustments to management measures in commercial and recreational groundfish fisheries. This action is intended to allow fishing vessels to access more abundant groundfish stocks while protecting rebuilding stocks. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective April 1, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">Electronic Access:</E> This rule is accessible at the Office of the Federal Register website at <E T="03">https://www.federalregister.gov.</E> Background information and documents are available at the Pacific Fishery Management Council's website at <E T="03">https://www.pcouncil.org.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Dr. Sean Matson: 206-526-6187 or <E T="03">sean.matson@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan (PCGFMP) and its implementing regulations at title 50 in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), part 660, subparts C through G, regulate fishing for over 90 species of groundfish seaward of Washington, Oregon, and California. The Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) develops groundfish harvest specifications and management measures for 2-year periods (biennia). NMFS published the final rule to implement harvest specifications and management measures for the 2023-2024 biennium for most species managed under the PCGFMP on December 16, 2022 (87 FR 77007). The management measures set at the start of the biennial harvest specifications cycle help the various sectors of the fishery attain, but not exceed, the catch limits for each stock. The Council, in coordination with Pacific Coast Treaty Indian Tribes and the States of Washington, Oregon, and California, recommends adjustments to the management measures during the fishing year to achieve this goal. At its March 2024 meeting, the Council recommended inseason measures, modifying fixed gear regulations in the area south of lat. 40°10′ N, including within the Non- Trawl Rockfish Conservation Area (RCA) boundaries, and commercial fixed gear trip limits for certain species within the limited entry (LE) and open access (OA) fisheries, including lingcod, the other flatfish complex, and the minor shelf rockfish complex. The purpose of these inseason measures is to promote the conservation of quillback rockfish and vermillion/sunset rockfish off California, while balancing the economic benefits of fishing opportunity. The Council also recommended modifications to Federal regulations, concerning the portion of the California recreational fishery that falls within Federal waters, which include changes to season dates and depth limits, and revisions to the sub-bag limit for vermilion/sunset rockfish south of lat. 40°10′ N. The March recommendations were communicated in a letter to NMFS dated March 20, 2024. The recommendations were based on analysis using newly available information on catch and attainment, and input from industry at the March meeting. Pacific Coast groundfish fisheries are managed using harvest specifications or limits ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> overfishing limits [OFL], acceptable biological catch [ABC], annual catch limits [ACL], and harvest guidelines [HG]) recommended biennially by the Council and based on the best scientific information available at that time (50 CFR 660.60(b)). During development of the harvest specifications, the Council also recommends management measures ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> trip limits, area closures, and bag limits) that are meant to control catch so as not to exceed the harvest specifications. The harvest specifications and management measures developed for the 2023-2024 biennium used data through the 2021 fishing year. Each of the adjustments to management measures discussed below are based on updated fisheries information that was unavailable when the analysis for the current harvest specifications was completed. As new fisheries data becomes available, adjustments to management measures are assessed and associated mortality is projected, so as to help harvesters achieve but not exceed the harvest limits. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Management Measures for Commercial Fixed Gear, LE and OA Fisheries</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD3">Non-Trawl RCA</HD> At the March 2024 meeting, the Council recommended actions to reduce fishing mortality of quillback rockfish and vermillion/sunset rockfish, off California, through the 2024 fishing season. Quillback rockfish off California is an overfished stock. Vermilion/sunset rockfish is managed in a stock complex, however, fishing mortality for the stock has exceeded the harvest specification contributions to the complex for several years. The recommended actions would reduce fishing mortality of these species, while further narrowing the scope of restrictions and minimizing the economic impact to fishing communities to the extent possible. These included a recommendation to adjust the Non-Trawl RCA latitudinal boundaries for the area between lat. 40°10′ N and lat. 36° N (to utilize a boundary at lat. 37°07′ N rather than lat. 36° N), so that the area between lat. 37°07′ N and lat. 34°27′ N, from 50 to 75 fathoms (fm), would be closed to fishing, and in the area from lat. 40°10′ N to lat. 37°07′ N, the 3 nautical mile line to 75fm, would be closed to fishing. The recommended non-trawl boundaries, as well as those under current regulations are shown in tables 1a and 1b. <GPOTABLE COLS="3" OPTS="L2,i1" CDEF="s50,r50,r50"> <TTITLE> Table 1 <E T="01">a</E> —Non-Trawl Rockfish Conservation Area Boundaries, South of Lat. 40°10′ N: Current Regulation <ENT>January through December.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">36° N-34°27′ N</ENT> <ENT>50-75 fm line</ENT> <ENT>January through December.</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> <GPOTABLE COLS="3" OPTS="L2,i1" CDEF="s50,r50,r50"> <TTITLE> Table 1 <E T="01">b</E> —Non-Trawl Rockfish Conservation Area Boundaries, South of Lat. 40°10′ N: Council Recommended <ENT>January through December.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">37°07′ N-34°27′ N</ENT> <ENT>50-75 fm line</ENT> <ENT>January through December.</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> <HD SOURCE="HD3">Trip Limits</HD> The recommended modifications of the Non-Trawl RCA in California necessitated corresponding changes to the latitude lines designating area-specific LE and OA trip limits for lingcod, the other flatfish complex, and the minor shelf rockfish complex (defined at § 660.11), south of lat. 40°10′ N (table 2a). For the minor shelf rockfish complex south of lat. 40°10′ N, in the LE fishery; in addition to exchanging the lat. 36° N boundary, in favor of the lat. 37°07′ N boundary, one latitudinal stratum was added with separate trip limits, dividing the area south of lat. 40°10′ N into three strata under Council recommendations, compared with two strata under current regulations. The new management area boundaries and corresponding trip limits for minor shelf rockfish are shown in table 2b. For minor shelf rockfish south of lat. 40°10′ N, in the OA fishery; in addition to exchanging the lat. 36° N boundary, in favor of the lat. 37°07′ N boundary, one latitudinal stratum was added with separate trip limits, dividing the area south of lat. 40°10′ N into three strata under Council recommendations, compared with two strata under current regulations. The new management area boundaries and corresponding trip limits for minor shelf rockfish are shown in table 2b. The Council's Groundfish Management Team (GMT) analyzed the combination of proposed changes ( <E T="03">Agenda Item F.8.a Supplemental GMT Report 1, March 2024</E> ) to trip limit amounts, by area strata, for minor shelf rockfish south of lat. 40°10′ N. These combinations included a specifically designed balance of modest increases, as well as decreases, in trip limits, together with the changes to the Non-Trawl RCA boundaries. The GMT found in their analysis that quillback rockfish encounters between lat. 36° and 37°07′ N have been rare throughout the relevant time series. Only 0.7 percent of commercial quillback rockfish landings occurred south of lat. 37°07′ N over the most recent 5-year period (2019-2023), and only 3.7 percent over a much longer time series (1992-2022). As such, the changes in trip limits south of lat. 37°07′ N are congruent with both maintaining adequate access by commercial fishers to groundfish resources and the conservation needs of quillback rockfish off California, which was recently determined to be overfished (NMFS notified the Council of the overfished status determination for quillback rockfish on December 14, 2023; <E T="03">Agenda Item F.2, Attachment 2, March 2024</E> ), and maintaining catches of vermillion/sunset rockfish at a sustainable level (catches have been high since 2015). Trip limits with corresponding areas are shown in Table 2. Recommended changes for the remaining lingcod, other flatfish complex, and minor shelf rockfish species did not involve any new limits themselves, only the redesignation of the latitudinal boundaries for existing limits, in accordance with the new recommended Non-Trawl RCA b ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 40k characters. 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