Marine Mammal Protection Act List of Fisheries for 2025

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 229</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 240911-0235]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BM91</RIN> <SUBJECT>Marine Mammal Protection Act List of Fisheries for 2025</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 comment. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS is publishing its proposed List of Fisheries (LOF) for 2025, as required by the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). The proposed LOF for 2025 reflects new information on interactions between commercial fisheries and marine mammals. NMFS must classify each commercial fishery on the LOF into one of three categories under the MMPA based on the level of mortality and serious injury (M/SI) of marine mammals that occurs incidental to each fishery. The classification of a fishery on the LOF determines whether participants in that fishery are subject to certain provisions of the MMPA, such as those regarding registration, observer coverage, and take reduction plan (TRP) requirements. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received by October 24, 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-2024-0037.</E> You may submit comments on this document, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2024-0037, by either of the following methods: <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 enter NOAA-NMFS-2024-0037 in the Search box. Click on the “Comment” icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach your comments. <E T="03">Mail:</E> Chief, Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Conservation Division, Office of Protected Resources, NMFS, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910. <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), 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). <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jaclyn Taylor, Office of Protected Resources, 301-427-8402; Cheryl Cross, Greater Atlantic Region, 978-281-9100; Jessica Powell, Southeast Region, 727-824-5312; Dan Lawson, West Coast Region, 206-526-4740; Suzie Teerlink, Alaska Region, 907-586-7240; Jamie Marchetti 808-725-5108, Pacific Islands Region, 808-725-5085. Individuals who use a telecommunications device for the hearing impaired may call the Federal Information Relay Service at 1-800-877-8339 between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday, excluding Federal holidays. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">What is the List of Fisheries?</HD> Section 118 of the MMPA requires NMFS to place all U.S. commercial fisheries into one of three categories based on the level of incidental M/SI of marine mammals occurring in each fishery (16 U.S.C. 1387(c)(1)). The classification of a fishery on the LOF determines whether participants in that fishery may be required to comply with certain provisions of the MMPA, such as those regarding registration, observer coverage, and TRP requirements. NMFS must reexamine the LOF annually, considering new information in the Marine Mammal Stock Assessment Reports (SARs) and other relevant sources, and publish in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> any necessary changes to the LOF after notice and opportunity for public comment (16 U.S.C. 1387 (c)(1)(C)). <HD SOURCE="HD1">How does NMFS determine in which category a fishery is placed?</HD> The definitions for the fishery classification criteria can be found in the implementing regulations for section 118 of the MMPA (50 CFR 229.2). The criteria are also summarized here. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Fishery Classification Criteria</HD> The fishery classification criteria consist of a two-tiered, stock-specific approach that first addresses the total impact of all fisheries on each marine mammal stock and then addresses the impact of individual fisheries on each stock. This approach is based on consideration of the rate, in numbers of animals per year, of incidental mortalities and serious injuries of marine mammals due to commercial fishing operations relative to the potential biological removal (PBR) level for each marine mammal stock. The MMPA (16 U.S.C. 1362 (20)) defines the PBR level as the maximum number of animals, not including natural mortalities, that may be removed from a marine mammal stock, while allowing that stock to reach or maintain its optimum sustainable population. This definition can also be found in the implementing regulations for section 118 of the MMPA (50 CFR 229.2). <E T="03">Tier 1:</E> Tier 1 considers the cumulative fishery M/SI for a particular stock. If the total annual M/SI of a marine mammal stock across all fisheries is less than or equal to 10 percent of the PBR level of the stock, all fisheries interacting with the stock will be placed in Category III (unless those fisheries interact with other stock(s) for which total annual M/SI is greater than 10 percent of PBR). Otherwise, these fisheries are subject to the next tier of analysis (Tier 2) to determine their classification. <E T="03">Tier 2:</E> Tier 2 considers fishery-specific M/SI for a particular stock. <E T="03">Category I:</E> Annual M/SI of a stock in a given fishery is greater than or equal to 50 percent of the PBR level ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> frequent incidental M/SI of marine mammals). <E T="03">Category II:</E> Annual M/SI of a stock in a given fishery is greater than 1 percent and less than 50 percent of the PBR level ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> occasional incidental M/SI of marine mammals). <E T="03">Category III:</E> Annual M/SI of a stock in a given fishery is less than or equal to 1 percent of the PBR level ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> a remote likelihood of or no known incidental M/SI of marine mammals). Additional details regarding how the categories were determined are provided in the preamble to the final rule implementing section 118 of the MMPA (60 FR 45086, August 30, 1995). Because fisheries are classified on a per-stock basis, a fishery may qualify as one category for one marine mammal stock and another category for a different marine mammal stock. A fishery is typically classified on the LOF at its highest level of classification ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> a fishery qualifying for Category III for one marine mammal stock and for Category II for another marine mammal stock will be listed under Category II). The superscript “1” in tables 1 and 2 identifies stocks whose incidental M/SI determines a fishery's higher classification. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Other Criteria That May Be Considered</HD> The tier analysis requires a minimum amount of data, and NMFS does not have sufficient data to perform a tier analysis on certain fisheries. Therefore, NMFS has classified certain fisheries by analogy to other fisheries that use similar fishing techniques or gear that are known to cause mortality or serious injury of marine mammals or according to factors discussed in the final LOF for 1996 (60 FR 67063, December 28, 1995) and listed in the regulatory definition of Category II and III fisheries (50 CFR 229.2). In the absence of reliable information indicating the frequency of incidental M/SI of marine mammals by a commercial fishery, NMFS will determine the level of incidental mortality or serious injury by evaluating other factors such as fishing techniques, gear used, methods used to deter marine mammals, target species, seasons and areas fished, qualitative data from logbooks or fishermen reports, stranding data, and the species and distribution of marine mammals in the area, or at the discretion of the Assistant Administrator for Fisheries. Further, eligible commercial fisheries not specifically identified on the LOF are deemed to be Category II fisheries until the next LOF is published (50 CFR 229.2). <HD SOURCE="HD1">How does NMFS determine which species or stocks are included as incidentally killed or injured in a fishery?</HD> The LOF includes a list of marine mammal species and/or stocks incidentally killed or injured in each commercial fishery. The list of species and/or stocks incidentally killed or injured includes serious and non-serious documented injuries as described below in the <E T="03">List of Species and/or Stocks Incidentally Killed or Injured in the Pacific Ocean</E> and <E T="03">List of Species and/or Stocks Incidentally Killed or Injured in the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean</E> sections. To determine which species or stocks are included as incidentally killed or injured in a fishery, NMFS annually reviews the information presented in the current SARs and injury determination reports. SARs are brief reports summarizing the status of each stock of marine mammals occurring in waters under U.S. jurisdiction. Information includes the identity and geographic range of the stock, population statistics related to abundance, trend, and annual productivity, notable habitat concerns, and estimates of human-caused M/SI by source. The SARs are based upon the best ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 156k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━