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

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 300</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 240624-0174]</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> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS is issuing regulations under the Tuna Conventions Act (TCA) of 1950, as amended, to implement Resolutions C-23-07 ( <E T="03">Conservation Measures for the Protection and Sustainable Management of Sharks</E> ) and C-23-11 ( <E T="03">On the Establishment of a Vessel Monitoring System</E> ) adopted by the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) at its meeting in August 2023 in Victoria, Canada. This final rule implements provisions of these Resolutions and requires U.S. longline vessels fishing for tuna or tuna-like species in the eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO) to release incidentally caught sharks by leaving them in the water and cutting the branchline so that less than 1 meter remains on each animal. The final rule also requires 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> This rule is effective August 1, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Copies of supporting documents that were prepared for the proposed rule, including the Regulatory Impact Review, are available via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> docket NOAA-NMFS-2024-0041. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Amanda Munro, NMFS, (619) 407-9284. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background on the IATTC</HD> On April 25, 2024, NMFS published a proposed rule in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (89 FR 31708) to implement Resolutions C-23-07 ( <E T="03">Conservation Measures for the Protection and Sustainable Management of Sharks</E> ) and C-23-11 ( <E T="03">On the Establishment of a Vessel Monitoring System</E> ). These Resolutions were adopted at the 101st Meeting of the IATTC in August 2023. The proposed rule contains additional background information, including information on the IATTC and its Convention Area, the international obligations of the United States as an IATTC member, and the need for regulations. The 30-day public comment period for the proposed rule closed on May 28, 2024. The final rule is implemented under the TCA (16 U.S.C. 951 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). This final rule applies to U.S. longline vessels of any size and all U.S. vessels longer than 24 meters (78.74 feet) fishing for tuna or tuna-like species in the IATTC Convention Area. The IATTC 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. <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 implemented by this final rule—IATTC Resolutions C-23-07 ( <E T="03">Conservation Measures for the Protection and Sustainable Management of Sharks</E> ) and C-23-11 ( <E T="03">On the Establishment of a Vessel Monitoring System</E> ). 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">Final Regulations for Sharks</HD> This final rule amends part 300, subpart C of title 50 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) to include shark handling and release requirements for longline vessels. Specifically, the rule requires 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 is 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 must carry a line clipper meeting minimum design standards onboard the vessel and use it to cut the branchline. The standards for this line clipper are 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 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 including a cross-reference to these regulations in the regulations governing EPO tuna fisheries, which are found in 50 CFR part 300, subpart C. The cross-reference is intended to make clear the regulations in 50 CFR part 600, subpart N apply to vessel owners and operators fishing for tuna and tuna-like species in the IATTC Convention Area. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Final Regulations for VMS</HD> Any U.S. commercial fishing vessel that is 24 meters or more in overall length and engaging in fishing activities for tuna or tuna-like species in the IATTC Convention Area is already required to have a VMS unit installed, per regulations at 50 CFR 300.26(b). In the rare event of a technical failure of a VMS unit while the vessel is at sea, vessel operators are required to notify NOAA Office of Law Enforcement (OLE) and follow OLE's instructions (see 50 CFR 300.26(c)(4)(ii)). This final rule adds the requirement of manual reporting in the event of a malfunctioning VMS unit. Specifically, vessel owners and operators must provide manual reports to OLE with specific information every 6 hours by appropriate telecommunication means such as radio, email, or telephone. The manual reports must include: the vessel's identification, the vessel's geographical position (latitude and longitude) accurate to within 100 meters, the date and time of the fixing of the vessel's position, and the vessel's speed and course. These reports must continue until the VMS unit issue is resolved or the vessel is back in port. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Public Comments and Responses</HD> NMFS received four comments from individual members of the public during the 30-day comment period on the proposed rule, which closed on May 28, 2024. One comment was outside the scope of the proposed rule and is not addressed. Two comments expressed support for the regulations as proposed, and one comment expressed concerns. These comments are detailed below with responses from NMFS. <E T="03">Comment 1:</E> One individual commenter expressed support for the safe handling and release procedures for sharks, noting the vulnerability of many shark species. <E T="03">Response:</E> NMFS thanks the commenter for the support for safe handling and release practices for sharks on longline vessels as included in the Resolution and rule. <E T="03">Comment 2:</E> One individual commenter expressed support for the safe handling and release procedures for sharks, applauding NMFS' efforts to promote consistency across fisheries. The commenter noted the importance of sharks to the ecosystem and emphasized the importance of best handling practices to improve survival of sharks interacting with fishing vessels. The commenter also suggested that NMFS encourage fishers to remove the hook from sharks rather than simply cut the branchline, as this may decrease the chances of infection and mortality. <E T="03">Response:</E> NMFS thanks the commenter for ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 22k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━