Fisheries of the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and South Atlantic; Snapper-Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic Region; Temporary Measures To Reduce Overfishing of Red Snapper

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 622</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 240610-0155]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BN05</RIN> <SUBJECT>Fisheries of the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and South Atlantic; Snapper-Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic Region; Temporary Measures To Reduce Overfishing of Red Snapper</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; interim measures. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS implements this final temporary rule to reduce overfishing of red snapper in Federal waters of the South Atlantic. For the 2024 fishing year, this temporary rule reduces the commercial and recreational annual catch limits (ACLs) and revises the authority of the Regional Administrator to change the red snapper recreational season dates under certain adverse weather conditions. This temporary rule also announces the red snapper 2024 commercial and recreational fishing season dates in the South Atlantic. This temporary rule is effective for 180 days. The purpose of this temporary rule is to reduce overfishing of red snapper and to provide notification of the red snapper seasons for 2024. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This temporary rule is effective on June 14, 2024, through December 11, 2024. The 2024 red snapper commercial season opens at 12:01 a.m., local time, July 8, 2024, until 12:01 a.m., local time, January 1, 2025, unless changed by subsequent notification in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . The 2024 red snapper recreational season opens at 12:01 a.m., local time, on July 12, 2024, and closes at 12:01 a.m., local time, on July 13, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Electronic copies of the environmental assessment (EA) supporting these interim measures, which includes a Regulatory Impact Review (RIR), may be obtained from the Southeast Regional Office website at <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/action/2024-south-atlantic-red-snapper-season.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Rick DeVictor, NMFS Southeast Regional Office, telephone: 727-824-5305, or email: <E T="03">rick.devictor@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> NMFS, with the advice of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council), manages the snapper-grouper fishery, which includes red snapper, under the Fishery Management Plan for the Snapper-Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic Region (FMP). The Council prepared the FMP, and NMFS implements the FMP through regulations at 50 CFR part 622 under authority of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act). The EA outlines the rationale for the interim measures contained in this temporary rule, and the EA is available from NMFS (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section). A summary of the management measures described in the EA and implemented by this temporary rule is provided below. All weights described in this temporary rule are in round weight unless otherwise specified. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> NMFS is implementing interim measures to reduce overfishing of South Atlantic red snapper in 2024 by reducing the commercial and recreational ACLs for 2024. NMFS is taking this action in response to the most recent stock assessment for South Atlantic red snapper, Southeast Data, Assessment, and Review (SEDAR) 73 (2021). The action is intended to reduce overfishing of the South Atlantic red snapper stock in the 2024 fishing year, consistent with the Magnuson-Stevens Act and its National Standards. The Magnuson-Stevens Act requires that NMFS and regional fishery management councils prevent overfishing and achieve, on a continuing basis, the optimum yield (OY) from federally managed fish stocks. These mandates are intended to ensure that fishery resources are managed for the greatest overall benefit to the Nation, particularly with respect to providing food production and recreational opportunities and protecting marine ecosystems. NMFS notified the Council in July 2021 that overfishing of red snapper was occurring, but the Council has failed to take action to end overfishing as required by the Magnuson-Stevens Act. South Atlantic red snapper is harvested by commercial and recreational fishermen. The current overfishing limit (OFL) and acceptable biological catch (ABC) for red snapper are 56,000 and 53,000 fish, respectively. The total ACL for South Atlantic red snapper is 42,510 fish and is allocated between the commercial sector at 28.07 percent and the recreational sector at 71.93 percent. That allocation ratio results in the current commercial ACL of 124,815 pounds (lb) (56,615 kilograms (kg)) and the recreational ACL of 29,656 fish (50 CFR 622.193(y)). The recreational sector ACL is specified in numbers of fish because that is a more reliable estimate for the recreational sector than specifying the ACL in weight of fish. The current sector ACLs were implemented in 2018 through the final rule to implement Amendment 43 to the FMP (83 FR 35428, July 26, 2018). The most recent stock assessment for red snapper in the South Atlantic, SEDAR 73, was completed in 2021 using the Beaufort Assessment Model, which is a statistical catch-at age model, and included data through 2019. The results of SEDAR 73 indicated that the South Atlantic red snapper stock remains overfished and is experiencing overfishing, and the overfishing is being primarily driven by high numbers of dead discards in the recreational sector. NMFS notified the Council via letter dated July 23, 2021, of the status of the red snapper stock in the South Atlantic based on the results of SEDAR 73. Following notification that a stock is undergoing overfishing and is overfished, the Magnuson-Stevens Act requires the development of an FMP, amendment, or regulations with actions that end overfishing immediately and rebuild the affected stock. Amendment 17A to the FMP, among other measures, established a red snapper rebuilding plan and specified a 35-year rebuilding schedule with the rebuilding time period ending in 2044 (75 FR 76874, December 9, 2010). Because SEDAR 73 shows that adequate progress towards rebuilding is being made and the stock is projected to be rebuilt by the end of the rebuilding timeframe, the existing rebuilding plan that was implemented through Amendment 17A does not need to be revised, but action is still required to end overfishing. The SEDAR 73 assessment provided information that can be used to update the status determination criteria and various reference points for red snapper, including ABCs and ACLs. The Council's Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) reviewed results of the assessment at its April and July 2021 meetings and recommended new values for the stock status criteria and OFL and ABC levels to the Council at the Council's September 2021 meeting. The SSC recommended new ABCs for each year through 2027, and its ABC recommendation for landed fish in 2024 is 31,000 fish or 368,000 lb (166,922 kg). The SSC's ABC recommendations also presumed a level of reductions in red snapper discards that would require action by the Council. In response to SEDAR 73, the SSC recommendations, and NMFS's July 2021 notification, the Council considered reducing the red snapper ABCs and ACLs to reduce red snapper landings and changing fishing gear requirements intended to reduce dead discards from the recreational sector through Regulatory Amendment 35 to the FMP (Regulatory Amendment 35). In March 2023, the Council approved Regulatory Amendment 35 for submission to NMFS under section 304(b) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. However, the Council did not transmit Regulatory Amendment 35 to NMFS, and in December 2023, the Council rescinded its March 2023 action to approve Regulatory Amendment 35 for submission to NMFS. The Council considered the results of a recent pilot study on the possible overestimation of recreational fishing effort, and Council members expressed their individual concerns with Regulatory Amendment 35. The Council requested additional information concerning red snapper at its December 2023 and March 2024 meetings and is not currently developing management measures to begin in 2024 that would address the overfishing of red snapper. The Council has failed to end the overfishing of red snapper as required by the Magnuson-Stevens Act. In addition, the Council has failed to develop ACLs for red snapper that do not exceed its SSC's fishing level recommendations as required by the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Therefore, NMFS has determined that interim measures to reduce overfishing are necessary for the 2024 fishing year while more permanent measures to end overfishing of red snapper are being considered, including whether to prepare an amendment developed by the Secretary of Commerce pursuant to section 304(c)(1)(A) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. To reduce overfishing, NMFS is decreasing the red snapper commercial ACL and recreational ACL through this temporary rule for 2024 to reduce the red snapper landings. These ACL values are the same as the SSC's recommended landed ABC values for 2024 based on SEDAR 73 and are the same as what the Council had previously chosen as its preferred alternative in Regulatory Amendment 35. As described in the EA, the total ACL for red snapper is reduced to 31,000 fish. The total ACL is divided by the Council's current allocation ratio for red snapper of 28.07 percent commercial and 71.93 percent recreational. The revised commercial ACL is 85,268 lb (38,677 kg) and the revised recreational ACL is 21,167 fish. The commercial sector ACL is set in pounds of fish because the commercial sector reports landings in weight, and weigh ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 34k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━