Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Framework Adjustment 15 to the Monkfish Fishery Management Plan; Framework Adjustment 6 to the Spiny Dogfish Fishery Management Plan

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 648</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 240805-0212]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BN01</RIN> <SUBJECT>Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Framework Adjustment 15 to the Monkfish Fishery Management Plan; Framework Adjustment 6 to the Spiny Dogfish Fishery Management Plan</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 to approve, and implement through regulations, measures included in Framework Adjustment 15 to the Monkfish Fishery Management Plan/Framework Adjustment 6 to the Spiny Dogfish Fishery Management Plan, which the New England and Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Councils jointly adopted and submitted to NMFS for approval. This action would establish area-based gear requirements for vessels fishing in the monkfish and spiny dogfish fisheries with gillnets in order to reduce bycatch of Atlantic sturgeon in these fisheries. This action is necessary to minimize bycatch of Atlantic sturgeon in the monkfish and spiny dogfish fisheries to the extent practicable and fulfill requirements of the Biological Opinion on Ten Fishery Management Plans in the Greater Atlantic Region and the New England Fishery Management Council's Omnibus Habitat Amendment 2. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Public comments must be received by September 11, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments on this document, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2024-0082, by the following method: • <E T="03">Electronic Submission:</E> Submit all electronic public comments via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. Go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and type NOAA-NMFS-2024-0082 in the Search Box ( <E T="03">note:</E> copying and pasting the FDMS Docket Number directly from this document may not yield search results). Click on the “Comment” icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach your 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">www.regulations.gov</E> without change. All personal identifying information ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> name, address, etc.), 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 Framework 15/Framework 6 document, including the Regulatory Flexibility Act Analysis and other supporting documents for the measures, are available from Cate O'Keefe, Executive Director, New England Fishery Management Council, 50 Water Street, Mill 2, Newburyport, MA 01950 and Chris Moore, Executive Director, Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, 800 North State Street, Suite 201, Dover, DE 19901. The Framework 15/Framework 6 document is also accessible via the internet at: <E T="03">https://www.nefmc.org/management-plans/monkfish or https://www.mafmc.org/dogfish.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Spencer Talmage, Fishery Policy Analyst, (978) 281-9232. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The New England Fishery Management Council (New England Council) and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Mid-Atlantic Council) (collectively, the Councils) jointly manage the Monkfish and Spiny Dogfish Fishery Management Plans (FMPs). The New England Council is the administrative lead for the Monkfish FMP, while the Mid-Atlantic Council is the lead for the Dogfish FMP. NMFS issued a Biological Opinion on May 27, 2021, that considered the effects of the authorization of two interstate fishery management plans (ISFMP) and eight Federal FMPs, including the Monkfish and Spiny Dogfish FMPs, on Endangered Species Act (ESA)-listed species and designated critical habitat through a formal Section 7 consultation. The Biological Opinion determined that NMFS's authorization of the eight FMPs and two ISFMPs may adversely affect, but is not likely to jeopardize, Atlantic sturgeon. The Biological Opinion included an Incidental Take Statement and Reasonable and Prudent Measures (RPM) with accompanying Terms and Conditions to minimize the impacts of incidental take of Atlantic sturgeon. The RPMs required that NMFS convene a working group to review all of the available information on Atlantic sturgeon bycatch in the federally permitted large-mesh gillnet fisheries and, by May 27, 2022, develop an Action Plan to reduce Atlantic sturgeon bycatch in these fisheries by 2024. NMFS initially issued the Action Plan on May 26, 2022, and revised it on September 26, 2022 to incorporate feedback from the Councils and public. The Councils subsequently developed this joint framework action—Framework 15 to the Monkfish FMP and Framework 6 to the Dogfish FMP—to address the recommendations of the Action Plan and fulfill the requirements of the Biological Opinion. This Joint Framework would establish the New Jersey Atlantic Sturgeon Bycatch Reduction Area, the Delaware and Maryland Atlantic Sturgeon Bycatch Reduction Area, and the Virginia Atlantic Sturgeon Bycatch Reduction Area (collectively, the Atlantic Sturgeon Bycatch Reduction Areas). Within these areas, the Joint Framework would: • Require vessels fishing on a monkfish day-at-sea (DAS) within the New Jersey Atlantic Sturgeon Bycatch Reduction Area to use low-profile gillnet gear, beginning on January 1, 2026; • Prohibit dogfish vessels fishing in the New Jersey Atlantic Sturgeon Bycatch Reduction Area from leaving gillnet gear in the water overnight during the months of May and November, effective 30 days from publication of the Final Rule; and • Prohibit dogfish vessels fishing in the Delaware and Maryland Atlantic Sturgeon Bycatch Reduction Area and Virginia Atlantic Sturgeon Bycatch Reduction Area from leaving gillnet gear in the water overnight from November through March, effective 30 days from the publication of the Final Rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Proposed Measures</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">1. Atlantic Sturgeon Bycatch Reduction Areas</HD> The measures being proposed in this Joint Framework Action are a set of area based-gear restrictions. To determine the location and spatial extent of “hot spots” where area-based gear restrictions would apply to the monkfish and spiny dogfish fisheries, observer data from these fisheries were summed across the years 2017-2019 and 2021-2022 (due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were very few observed trips in 2020). These observer data were stratified into squares, with each side being 10 minutes latitude or longitude. Boundary lines for the Atlantic Sturgeon Bycatch Reduction Areas were drawn such that the entirety of squares with the highest levels of observed bycatch of Atlantic sturgeon were completely encompassed by the area with a buffer of one mile (1.6 km), and squares of lower levels of Atlantic sturgeon bycatch were partially encompassed by the area being drawn in a manner that overlapped with observed Atlantic sturgeon bycatch on the edges of the hot spot area. The boundaries of these areas closest to the shoreline were clipped to the shore in order to extend the area requirements into state waters, where sturgeon are expected to be present. Offshore latitude and longitude points that comprised the resulting polygons were rounded to the nearest 0.05 or 0.1 of a minute to improve ease of compliance and enforcement. Four distinct areas were identified via this methodology: One off the coast of Rhode Island/Southern New England; one off the coast of New Jersey; and two off the coasts of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. This action proposes gear requirements that would be in place within the New Jersey Atlantic Sturgeon Bycatch Reduction Area, the Delaware and Maryland Atlantic Sturgeon Bycatch Reduction Area, and the Virginia Atlantic Sturgeon Bycatch Reduction Area. No measures are being proposed for the area off the coast of Rhode Island/Southern New England. <HD SOURCE="HD2">2. Low-Profile Gillnet Gear</HD> This framework action would require vessels fishing on a Monkfish DAS within the New Jersey Atlantic Sturgeon Bycatch Reduction Area that are using large mesh ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> greater than or equal to 10 inches (25.4 centimeters (cm)) to use low-profile gillnet gear. Low-profile gillnet gear is defined by the Councils as having: • Mesh size ranging from 12 to 13 inches (30.48 to 33.02 cm); • Net height ranging from 6 to 8 meshes tall; • Net length of 300 feet (91.44 meters (m)); • Tie-down length of less than or equal to 30 inches (76.2 cm); • Tie-down spacing of 12 feet (3.66 m); • Primary hanging ratio of 0.50; • Twine size of 0.81 millimeters (mm); and • Tie downs at every float to keep the float line down. These characteristics are intended to reduce interaction with Atlantic sturgeon by reducing the likelihood that Atlantic sturgeon high in the water column will become entangled, by allowing smaller sturgeon to swim through the larger mesh and allowing the larger sturgeon to break the mesh. The proposed requirement to use low-profile gillnet gear within the New Jersey Atlantic Sturgeon Bycatch Reduction Area would begin on January 1, 2026, as recommended by the Councils, to allow for the twine size to be considered under Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) provisions and to provide industry time to transition to new gear. The ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 29k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━