Pacific Halibut Fisheries of the West Coast; 2023 Catch Sharing Plan and Recreational Management Measures

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 300</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 240327-0090]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BM75</RIN> <SUBJECT>Pacific Halibut Fisheries of the West Coast; 2023 Catch Sharing Plan and Recreational Management Measures</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> This final rule approves changes to the Pacific Halibut Catch Sharing Plan for the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC)'s regulatory Area 2A off of Washington, Oregon, and California. In addition, this final rule implements management measures governing the 2024 recreational fisheries that are not implemented through the IPHC. These management measures include the recreational fishery seasons and subarea allocations for Area 2A. This rule also adds a new inseason management provision to transfer anticipated uncaught recreational fishery allocation between the Area 2A states. Additionally, the rule establishes a new management line at Point Arena, CA, creating two subareas with separate allocations off California. These actions are intended to conserve Pacific halibut and provide angler opportunity where available. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective April 4, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Additional information regarding this action may be obtained by contacting the Sustainable Fisheries Division, NMFS West Coast Region, 501 W Ocean Blvd., Long Beach, CA 90802. For information regarding all halibut fisheries and general regulations not contained in this rule, contact the International Pacific Halibut Commission, 2320 W Commodore Way, Suite 300, Seattle, WA 98199-1287. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Melissa Mandrup, phone: 562-980-3231 or email: <E T="03">melissa.mandrup@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The Northern Pacific Halibut Act of 1982 (Halibut Act), 16 U.S.C. 773-773k, gives the Secretary of Commerce responsibility for implementing the provisions of the Convention between Canada and the United States for the Preservation of the Halibut Fishery of the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea (Halibut Convention), signed at Ottawa, Ontario, on March 2, 1953, as amended by a Protocol Amending the Convention (signed at Washington, DC, on March 29, 1979). The Halibut Act requires that the Secretary of Commerce adopt regulations to carry out the purposes and objectives of the Halibut Convention and Halibut Act (16 U.S.C. 773c). Additionally, as provided in the Halibut Act, the Regional Fishery Management Councils having authority for the geographic area concerned may develop, and the Secretary of Commerce may implement, regulations governing Pacific halibut fishing in in U.S. waters that are in addition to, and not in conflict with, approved IPHC regulations (16 U.S.C. 773c(c)). At its annual meeting held January 22-26, 2024 the IPHC adopted an Area 2A catch limit also known as the fishery constant exploitation yield (FCEY) of 1.47 million pounds (lb; 666.8 metric tons [mt]) of Pacific halibut. The FCEY was derived from the total constant exploitation yield (TCEY) of 1.65 million lb (748.4 mt) for Area 2A, which includes commercial discards and bycatch estimates calculated using a formula developed by the IPHC. The Area 2A catch limit and commercial fishery allocations were adopted by the IPHC and were accepted by the Secretary of State, with concurrence from the Secretary of Commerce, in accordance with 50 CFR 300.62 on March 9, 2024. This final rule contains 2024 recreational fishery subarea allocations based on the Area 2A catch limit adopted by the IPHC that were published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on March 18, 2024 (89 FR 19275). Additionally, the March 18, 2024 (89 FR 19275) final rule contains annual domestic management measures and IPHC regulations that are published each year under NMFS' authority to implement the Halibut Convention (50 CFR 300.62). Since 1988, the Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) has developed a Catch Sharing Plan that allocates the IPHC regulatory Area 2A Pacific halibut catch limit between treaty tribal and non-tribal harvesters and among non-tribal commercial and recreational (sport) fisheries. NMFS has implemented at 50 CFR 300.63 <E T="03">et seq.</E> certain provisions of the Catch Sharing Plan and implemented in annual rules annual management measures consistent with the Catch Sharing Plan. In 1995, the Council recommended and NMFS approved a long-term Area 2A Catch Sharing Plan (60 FR 14651; March 20, 1995). NMFS has been approving adjustments to the Area 2A Catch Sharing Plan based on Council recommendations each year to address the changing needs of these fisheries. While the full Catch Sharing Plan is not published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> , it is made available on the Council website: <E T="03">https://www.pcouncil.org/documents/2024/01/2024-pacific-halibut-catch-sharing-plan.pdf/.</E> This rule approves the changes the Council recommended at its November 2023 meeting to the Catch Sharing Plan for Area 2A. The recommended changes to the Catch Sharing Plan were developed through the Council's public process. The changes to the Catch Sharing Plan were detailed in the proposed rule and are not repeated here. This rule also implements recreational Pacific halibut fishery management measures for 2024, which include season opening and closing dates, bag limits, a new subarea off California, and a new inseason action to reallocate or transfer recreational fishery allocation between states. These management measures are consistent with the recommendations made by the Council for the 2024 Catch Sharing Plan and the season dates recommended by the states during the proposed rule's public comment period, where applicable, and which are detailed below. <HD SOURCE="HD1">2024 Recreational Fishery Management Measures</HD> NMFS is implementing recreational fishery management measures consistent with the Council's recommendations for the 2024 Catch Sharing Plan. If there is any discrepancy between the Catch Sharing Plan and federal regulations, federal regulations take precedence. These provisions may be modified through inseason action consistent with 50 CFR 300.63(c). All recreational fishing in Area 2A is managed on a “port of landing” basis, whereby any halibut landed into a port counts toward the allocation for the area in which that port is located, and the regulations governing the area of landing apply, regardless of the specific area of catch. The 2024 recreational fishing subareas, allocations, fishing dates, and daily bag limits are described below: <HD SOURCE="HD2">Washington Puget Sound and the U.S. Convention Waters in the Strait of Juan de Fuca</HD> The allocation for landings into ports in Puget Sound and the U.S. waters in the Strait of Juan de Fuca is 81,729 lb (37.1 mt). (a) The Puget Sound is open 7 days a week from April 4 through June 30. If the subarea allocation remains for at least another full day of fishing after June 30, NMFS may take inseason action to reopen the fishery in August, up to 7 days per week, through September. The area will close when there is not sufficient subarea allocation for another full day of fishing. Any inseason action, including closures, will be announced in accordance with Federal regulations at 50 CFR 300.63(c) and on the NMFS hotline at (206) 526-6667 or (800) 662-9825. (b) The daily bag limit is one Pacific halibut of any size per person. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Washington North Coast Subarea</HD> The allocation for landings into ports in the Washington North Coast subarea is 132,366 lb (60.0 mt). (a) The Washington North Coast is open: • May 2, 3, 4; • May 9, 10, 11; • May 16, 17, 18; • May 24; • May 26; • May 30, 31, June 1; • June 6, 7, 8; • June 13, 14, 15; • June 20, 21, 22; and • June 27, 28, 29. If the subarea allocation remains for at least another full day of fishing after June 30, NMFS may take inseason action to reopen the fishery in August, up to 7 days per week, through September. The area will close when there is not sufficient subarea allocation for another full day of fishing. Any inseason action, including closures, will be announced in accordance with Federal regulations at 50 CFR 300.63(c) and on the NMFS hotline at (206) 526-6667 or (800) 662-9825. (b) daily bag limit is one Pacific halibut of any size per person. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Washington South Coast Subarea</HD> The allocation for landings into ports in the Washington South Coast subarea is 67,074 lb (30.4 mt) with 65,074 lb (29.5 mt) allocated to the primary fishery and 2,000 lb (0.9 mt) to the nearshore fishery. (a) The Washington South Coast primary fishery is open: • May 2, 5, 7; • May 9, 12, 14; • May 16, 19, 21; and • May 23. If sufficient subarea allocation remains for at least another full day of fishing after May 30, the primary fishery will reopen: • June 13, 16, 18; • June 20, 23, 25; • June 27, and 30; or • until there is not sufficient subarea allocation for another full day of fishing. If the subarea allocation remains for at least another full day of fishing after June 30, NMFS may take inseason action to reopen the fishery in August, up to 7 days per week, through September. The area will close when there is not sufficient subarea allocation for another full day of fishing. Any inseason action, including closures, will be announced in accordance with Federal regulations at 50 CFR 300.63(c) and on the NMFS hotline at (206) 526-6667 or (800) 662-9825. When the Washington S ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 29k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━