International Fisheries; Pacific Tuna Fisheries; Safe Handling and Release Practices for Sharks on Longline Vessels and Revision to Vessel Monitoring System Requirements in the Eastern Pacific Ocean

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 300</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 240417-0110]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BM67</RIN> <SUBJECT>International Fisheries; Pacific Tuna Fisheries; Safe Handling and Release Practices for Sharks on Longline Vessels and Revision to Vessel Monitoring System Requirements in the Eastern Pacific Ocean</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS is proposing regulations under the Tuna Conventions Act of 1950, as amended, to implement Resolutions C-23-07 (Conservation Measures for the Protection and Sustainable Management of Sharks) and C-23-11 (On the Establishment of a Vessel Monitoring System) adopted by the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) at its meeting in August 2023 in Victoria, Canada. This proposed rule would implement provisions of these Resolutions and would require U.S. longline vessels fishing for tuna or tuna-like species in the eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO) that have incidental shark catch to release sharks by leaving them in the water and cutting the branchline so that less than 1 meter remains on each animal. The proposed rule would also require large vessels fishing for tuna or tuna-like species in the EPO to make manual reports every six hours in the event of a malfunctioning vessel monitoring system (VMS) unit. This action is necessary for the United States to satisfy its obligations as a member of the IATTC. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments on the proposed rule and supporting documents must be submitted in writing by May 28, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> A plain language summary of this proposed rule is available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/NOAA-NMFS-2024-0041.</E> You may submit comments on this document, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2024-0041, by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Submission:</E> Submit all electronic public comments via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. Visit <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and type NOAA-NMFS-2024-0041 in the Search box. Click on the “Comment” icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach your comments. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Submit written comments to Amanda Munro, NMFS West Coast Region Long Beach Office, 501 W Ocean Blvd., Suite 4200, Long Beach, CA 90802. Include the identifier “NOAA-NMFS-2024-0041” in the comments. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> Comments sent by any other method, to any other address or individual, or received after the end of the comment period, may not be considered by NMFS. All comments received are a part of the public record and will generally be posted for public viewing on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> without change. All personal identifying information ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> name, address, <E T="03">etc.</E> ), confidential business information, or otherwise sensitive information submitted voluntarily by the sender will be publicly accessible. NMFS will accept anonymous comments (enter “N/A” in the required fields if you wish to remain anonymous). Copies of the draft Regulatory Impact Review (RIR) and other supporting documents are available via the Federal eRulemaking Portal: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> docket NOAA-NMFS-2024-0041 or contact the Highly Migratory Species Branch, Amanda Munro, 501 W. Ocean Blvd., Suite 4200, Long Beach, CA 90802, or <E T="03">WCR.HMS@noaa.gov.</E> Send comments on the collection of information pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) by email to <E T="03">OIRA_Submission@omb.eop.gov,</E> or fax to (202) 395-5806. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Amanda Munro, NMFS, (619) 407-9284, <E T="03">Amanda.Munro@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background on the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission</HD> The United States is a member of the IATTC, which was established in 1949 and operates under the Convention for the Strengthening of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission Established by the 1949 Convention between the United States of America and the Republic of Costa Rica (Antigua Convention). The IATTC consists of 21 member nations and 5 cooperating non-member nations. The IATTC facilitates the conservation, research, and management of tuna and tuna-like species in the IATTC Convention Area (Convention Area). The Convention Area is defined as waters of the EPO within the area bounded by the west coast of the Americas and by 50° N latitude, 150° W longitude, and 50° S latitude. The IATTC maintains a scientific research and fishery monitoring program and regularly assesses the status of tuna, shark, and billfish stocks in the EPO to determine appropriate catch limits and other measures to promote sustainable fisheries and prevent overexploitation. The text of the Antigua Convention can be found here: <E T="03">https://www.iattc.org/PDFFiles/IATTC-Instruments/_English/IATTC_Antigua_Convention%20Jun%202003.pdf.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">International Obligations of the United States Under the Convention</HD> As a Party to the Antigua Convention and a member of the IATTC, the United States is legally bound to implement decisions of the IATTC. The Tuna Conventions Act (TCA), 16 U.S.C. 951 <E T="03">et seq.,</E> directs the Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with the Secretary of State and, with respect to enforcement measures, the U.S. Coast Guard, to promulgate such regulations as may be necessary to carry out the United States' obligations under the Antigua Convention, including recommendations and decisions adopted by the IATTC. The authority of the Secretary of Commerce to promulgate such regulations has been delegated to NMFS. All Resolutions adopted by the IATTC can be found online: <E T="03">https://iattc.org/ResolutionsActiveENG.htm.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">IATTC Resolutions on Sharks and VMS</HD> The IATTC held its 101st Meeting in August 2023 in Victoria, Canada. During this meeting, the IATTC adopted several resolutions, including the two that would be implemented by this proposed rule—IATTC Resolutions C-23-07 (Conservation Measures for the Protection and Sustainable Management of Sharks) and C-23-11 (On the Establishment of a Vessel Monitoring System). IATTC Resolution C-23-07 includes new requirements regarding safe handling and release procedures for sharks caught by longline vessels. Paragraph 11(f) of the Resolution includes the requirements to “leave the shark in the water, where possible” and “use a line cutter to cut the branchline as close to the hook as possible, and so that less than 1 meter remains on the animal, to the extent practicable.” It also includes provisions applicable to all vessels prohibiting shark finning and requiring sharks be landed with fins naturally attached, which are already required in the United States by the Shark Conservation Act of 2010. To ensure that vessel locations and identification numbers remain available to relevant authorities at a consistent interval even in the event of a technical failure, IATTC Resolution C-23-11 specifies a manual reporting requirement in the event of a malfunctioning VMS unit for vessels above 24 meters (78.74 feet) in length. The Resolution states in paragraph 4 that “a fishing vessel with a defective satellite tracking device shall communicate to the . . . relevant competent authority at a minimum every 6 hours, reports containing [vessel identification number, location, date, time, speed, and course] by appropriate telecommunication means ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> radio, web-based reporting, electronic mail, telefax or telex).” <HD SOURCE="HD1">Proposed Regulations for Sharks</HD> This proposed rule, if adopted, would amend 50 CFR 300.27(k), which currently contains shark handling and release requirements for purse seine vessels, to also include shark handling and release requirements for longline vessels. No changes are proposed to the existing requirements for purse seine vessels. Specifically, the proposed rule would require U.S. longline vessel owners and operators to leave live, unretained sharks in the water and cut the branchline so that less than 1 meter of trailing gear remains on the animal. If this procedure is not possible without compromising the safety of any persons, the vessel owner or operator would be required to cut the branchline as close to the hook as possible. To facilitate the trimming of the branchline to the appropriate length, longline vessel owners or operators would be required to carry a line clipper meeting minimum design standards onboard the vessel and use it to cut branchline. The standards for this line clipper would be the same as those already required for Hawaii-based longline vessels (see 50 CFR 665.812(a)(5)), which make up the majority of longline vessels fishing in the EPO. The standards for the line clipper would include a protected cutting blade with an edge capable of cutting monofilament line or braided mainline that is securely fastened to an extended reach holder of at least 6 feet. Shark finning ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> the practice of removing any fin from the body of a shark at sea) is prohibited in the United States by the Shark Conservation Act of 2010, which was implemented by regulations at 50 CFR part 600, subpart N. The statute and regulations also prohibit the possession, transfer, and landing of any shark fin that is not naturally attached ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> attached to the corresponding shark carcass through some portion of uncut skin). As part of this rulemaking, NMFS is pr ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 33k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━