Atlantic Highly Migratory Species; Atlantic Bluefin Tuna Fisheries; Angling Category Retention Limit Adjustment

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 635</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 220919-0193; RTID 0648-XD871]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Atlantic Highly Migratory Species; Atlantic Bluefin Tuna Fisheries; Angling Category Retention Limit Adjustment</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Temporary rule; retention limit adjustment. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS has determined, based on consideration of the regulatory determination criteria regarding inseason adjustments, that the Atlantic bluefin tuna (BFT) daily retention limit that applies to Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Angling and HMS Charter/Headboat permitted vessels (when fishing recreationally for BFT) should be adjusted for the remainder of 2024. NMFS is adjusting the Angling category BFT daily retention limit from the default of 1 school, large school, or small medium BFT to: 2 school BFT and 1 large school/small medium BFT per vessel per day/trip for private vessels with HMS Angling permits; 3 school BFT and 1 large school/small medium BFT per vessel per day/trip for charter boat vessels with HMS Charter/Headboat permits when fishing recreationally; and 12 school BFT and 2 large school/small medium BFT per vessel per day/trip for headboat vessels with HMS Charter/Headboat permits when fishing recreationally. These retention limits are effective in all areas, except for the Gulf of Mexico, where targeted fishing for BFT is prohibited. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective May 23, 2024, through December 31, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Anna Quintrell ( <E T="03">anna.quintrell@noaa.gov</E> ) or Larry Redd, Jr. ( <E T="03">larry.redd@noaa.gov</E> ) at 301-427-8503. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Atlantic BFT fisheries are managed under the 2006 Consolidated HMS Fishery Management Plan (FMP) and its amendments, pursuant to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act; 16 U.S.C. 1801 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) and consistent with the Atlantic Tunas Convention Act (ATCA; 16 U.S.C. 971 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). HMS implementing regulations are at 50 CFR part 635. Section 635.27 divides the U.S. BFT quota, established by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) and as implemented by the United States among the various domestic fishing categories, per the allocations established in the 2006 Consolidated HMS FMP and its amendments. NMFS is required under the Magnuson-Stevens Act at 16 U.S.C. 1854(g)(1)(D) to provide U.S. fishing vessels with a reasonable opportunity to harvest quotas under relevant international fishery agreements such as the ICCAT Convention, which is implemented domestically pursuant to ATCA. As described in § 635.27(a), the current baseline U.S. BFT quota is 1,316.14 metric tons (mt) (not including the 25-mt ICCAT allocated to the United States to account for bycatch of BFT in pelagic longline fisheries in the Northeast Distant Gear Restricted Area). The Angling category baseline quota is 297.4 mt. This baseline quota is further subdivided into subquotas by size class (see Table 1) as follows: 134.1 mt for school BFT, 154.1 mt for large school/small medium BFT, and 9.2 mt for large medium/giant BFT. Large school and small medium BFT traditionally have been managed as one size class, <E T="03">i.e.,</E> a limit of one large school/small medium BFT (measuring 47 to less than 73 inches, 119 to less than 150 cm). Similarly, large medium and giant BFT traditionally have been managed as one size class that is also known as the “trophy” class. Currently, the default Angling category daily retention limit of one school, large school, or small medium BFT is in effect and applies to HMS Angling and HMS Charter/Headboat permitted vessels (when fishing recreationally for BFT) (§ 635.23(b)(2)). <GPOTABLE COLS="2" OPTS="L2,i1" CDEF="s100,r150"> <TTITLE>Table 1—BFT Size Classes</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Size class</CHED> <CHED H="1">Curved fork length</CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">School</ENT> <ENT>27 to less than 47 inches (68.5 to less than 119 cm).</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Large school</ENT> <ENT>47 to less than 59 inches (119 to less than 150 cm).</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Small medium</ENT> <ENT>59 to less than 73 inches (150 to less than 185 cm).</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Large medium</ENT> <ENT>73 to less than 81 inches (185 to less than 206 cm).</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Giant</ENT> <ENT>81 inches or greater (206 cm or greater).</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Adjustment of Angling Category Daily Retention Limit</HD> Under § 635.23(b)(3), NMFS may increase or decrease the Angling category retention limit for any size class of BFT after considering determination criteria provided under § 635.27(a)(7). Also under § 635.23(b)(3), recreational retention limits may be adjusted separately for specific vessel type, such as private vessels, headboats, or charter boats. NMFS has considered all of the relevant determination criteria and their applicability to the change in the Angling category retention limit. After considering these criteria, NMFS has decided to adjust the Angling category retention limits as follows: (1) For private vessels with HMS Angling permits, this action adjusts the limit upwards to two school BFT and one large school/small medium BFT per vessel per day/trip ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> two BFT measuring 27 to less than 47 inches (68.5 to less than 119 cm) and one BFT measuring 47 to less than 73 inches (119 to less than 185 cm)). (2) For charter boat vessels with HMS Charter/Headboat permits, this action adjusts the limit upwards to three school BFT and one large school/small medium BFT per vessel per day/trip when fishing recreationally for BFT ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> three BFT measuring 27 to less than 47 inches (68.5 to less than 119 cm) and one BFT measuring 47 to less than 73 inches (119 to less than 185 cm)). (3) For headboat vessels with HMS Charter/Headboat permits, this action adjusts the limit upwards to 12 school BFT and 2 large school/small medium BFT per vessel per day/trip when fishing recreationally for BFT ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> 12 BFT measuring 27 to less than 47 inches (68.5 to less than 119 cm) and 2 BFT measuring 47 to less than 73 inches (119 to less than 185 cm)). Regardless of the duration of a fishing trip, no more than a single day's retention limit may be possessed or retained at the end of the trip upon landing. For example, whether a private vessel (fishing under the Angling category retention limit) takes a two-day trip or makes two trips in one day, the day/trip retention limit of two school BFT and one large school/small medium BFT applies and may not be exceeded upon landing. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Consideration of the Determination Criteria</HD> NMFS has considered all of the relevant determination criteria under § 635.27(a)(7) and their applicability to this inseason retention limit adjustment. These considerations include, but are not limited to, the following: Regarding the usefulness of information obtained from catches in the particular category for biological sampling and monitoring of the status of the stock (§ 635.27(a)(7)(i)), biological samples collected from BFT landed by recreational fishermen continue to provide NMFS with valuable parts and data for ongoing scientific studies of BFT age and growth, migration, and reproductive status. Additional opportunity to land BFT in the Angling category would support the continued collection of a broad range of data for these studies and for stock monitoring purposes. NMFS also considered recent catches of the Angling category quota to date and the likelihood of closure of that segment of the fishery if no adjustment is made (§ 635.27(a)(7)(ii)). Specifically, NMFS considered Angling category landings in 2023, which were approximately 74 percent of the 297.4-mt annual Angling category quota in 2023, including landings of approximately 12 percent of the available school BFT quota (134.1 mt) in 2023, under similar daily retention limits as implemented in this action. Thus, the likelihood of closure of this segment of the fishery is highly unlikely if no adjustment is made. Rather, absent retention limit adjustment, NMFS anticipates that the available 2024 Angling category quota would not be harvested under the default retention limit. NMFS also considered the effects of the adjustment on the BFT stock and the effects of the adjustment on accomplishing the objectives of the 2006 Consolidated HMS FMP (§ 635.27(a)(7)(v) and (vi)). These retention limits would be consistent with established quotas and subquotas, which are implemented consistent with ICCAT recommendations (established in recommendation 22-10), ATCA, and the objectives of the 2006 Consolidated HMS FMP and amendments. In establishing these quotas and subquotas and associated management measures, ICCAT and NMFS considered the best scientific information available, objectives for stock management and status, and effects on the stock. These retention limits are in line with the established management measures and stock status determinations. It is also important that NMFS limit landings to the subquotas both to adhere to the FMP quota allocations and to ensure that landings are as consistent as possible with the pattern of fishing mortality ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> fish caught at each age) that was assumed in the latest stock assessment, and these retention limits are consistent with those objectives. Another principal consideration in setting the retention limit is the objecti ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 18k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━