Atlantic Highly Migratory Species; Atlantic Shark Management Measures; 2025 Research Fishery

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[RTID 0648-XE292]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Atlantic Highly Migratory Species; Atlantic Shark Management Measures; 2025 Research Fishery</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice; request for applications. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS requests applications for the 2025 shark research fishery from commercial shark fishermen with Atlantic shark Directed or Incidental limited access permits. The shark research fishery provides fishery-dependent and biological data collection to support stock assessments and other NMFS' research and management objectives. The only commercial vessels authorized to land sandbar sharks are those participating in the shark research fishery. Shark research fishery participants may also land other species of sharks, dependent on the terms and conditions of their permit. Commercial shark fishermen who are interested in participating in the shark research fishery must submit a completed Shark Research Fishery Permit Application to be considered. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> NMFS must receive Shark Research Fishery Permit Applications no later than December 9, 2024. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Please submit completed applications via email to <E T="03">NMFS.Research.Fishery@noaa.gov.</E> For copies of the Shark Research Fishery Permit Application, please email a request to <E T="03">NMFS.Research.Fishery@noaa.gov.</E> Copies of the Shark Research Fishery Permit Application are also available on the highly migratory species (HMS) website at <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/atlantic-highly-migratory-species/atlantic-highly-migratory-species-exempted-fishing-permits.</E> Please be advised that NMFS may release your application under the Freedom of Information Act. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Karyl Brewster-Geisz or Delisse Ortiz at 301-427-8503, or email <E T="03">NMFS.Research.Fishery@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> HMS fisheries (tunas, billfish, swordfish, and sharks) are managed under the 2006 Consolidated HMS Fishery Management Plan (FMP) and its amendments pursuant to the authority of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (16 U.S.C. 1801 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) and consistent with the Atlantic Tunas Convention Act (16 U.S.C. 971 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). HMS implementing regulations are at 50 CFR part 635. Section 635.27(b)(1) describes the commercial shark quotas, § 635.24(a)(1) includes information on retention limits, and § 635.32(f) provides details on the shark research fishery. In Amendment 2 to the 2006 Consolidated HMS FMP (73 FR 40657, July 7, 2008; corrected at 73 FR 40658, July 15, 2008), NMFS established the shark research fishery, in part, to maintain time series data for stock assessments and to meet NMFS' management and research objectives. Since then, the shark research fishery has allowed for: • Fishery-dependent data collection for current and future stock assessments; • Cooperative research to meet NMFS' ongoing objectives; • Data collection on life-history information used in the sandbar shark (and other species) stock assessments; • Data collection on habitat preferences that might help reduce fishery interactions through bycatch mitigation; • Evaluation of the utility of the mid-Atlantic closed area on the recovery of dusky sharks and collection of hook-timer and pop-up satellite archival tag information to determine at-vessel and post-release mortality of dusky sharks; and • Shark collection to determine the weight conversion factor from dressed weight to whole weight. The shark research fishery allows selected commercial fishermen the opportunity to earn revenue from selling additional sharks, including sandbar sharks. Only shark research fishery participants are authorized to land sandbar sharks subject to the sandbar quota available each year. The base annual commercial quotas for sandbar sharks is 90.7 metric tons (mt) dressed weight (dw) and for research large coastal sharks (LCS) is 50 mt dw per year, although the quotas may be reduced in the event of overharvests. The selected shark research fishery participants will also be allowed to land other shark species consistent with any restrictions established on their shark research fishery permit. Generally, the shark research fishery permits are valid only for the calendar year for which they are issued. NMFS requires 100-percent observer coverage on shark research fishery trips. The specific 2025 trip limits and number of trips per month will depend on the availability of funding, number of selected vessels, the availability of observers, the available quota, and the objectives of the research fishery, and will be included in the permit terms at time of issuance. The number of shark research fishery participants varies each year. In 2024, three fishermen participated in the shark research fishery. From 2008 through 2023, an average of 6 fishermen participated in the shark research fishery each year with a range from 3 to 11 fishermen. Overall, the timing and number of trips participants take varies year-to-year based on seasonal availability of certain species and available quota. Specifically, the scientific and research needs of the Agency and the number of NMFS-approved observers available limits the number of trips taken per month. In the last few years, participating vessels on average have been able to take one trip per month. Participants may also be limited in the amount of gear they can deploy on a given set ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> number of hooks and sets, soak times, length of longline). These limits have changed both between years and during the year depending on research goals and bycatch limits. In 2024, NMFS split 90 percent of the sandbar and LCS research fishery quotas equally among selected participants, with 16.3 mt dw (35,935 pounds (lb) dw) of sandbar shark research fishery quota and 9.0 mt dw (19,841 lb dw) of other LCS research fishery quota available to each vessel. NMFS held the remaining quota in reserve to ensure that shark research fishery participants did not exceed the overall sandbar and LCS research fishery quotas. NMFS may use this process again for the 2025 research fishery quotas or may consider other methods of distributing the available quotas. Shark research fishery participants will be notified of their sandbar and LCS research fishery quotas upon issuance of their shark research fishery permits. In 2024, NMFS continued to implement a regional dusky shark bycatch limit, which was first established in the shark research fishery in 2013, applicable to four regions across the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic. Per the terms and conditions in the shark research fishery permit, under this limit, when shark research fishery participants bring four or more dusky sharks to the vessel dead in a region, the shark research fishery participants in that region are prohibited from soaking their gear for longer than 3 hours. If, after the change in soak time, three additional dusky shark interactions (alive or dead) are observed, shark research fishery participants are prohibited from making a trip in that region for the remainder of the year, unless otherwise permitted by NMFS. NMFS established slightly different measures for shark research fishery participants in the mid-Atlantic shark closed area in order to allow NMFS observers to place satellite archival tags on dusky sharks and collect other scientific information on dusky sharks while also minimizing any dusky shark mortality. NMFS expects to continue to implement the dusky shark bycatch limit in 2025. Also in 2024, NMFS provided monetary compensation to participants who had electronic monitoring (EM) sensors installed and operating on their vessels for some of their shark research fishery trips. Similarly, NMFS may provide participants monetary compensation in 2025 for some fishing trips, dependent on the fulfillment of any relevant requirements in the terms and conditions of the permit. To be considered for selection to participate in the shark research fishery, commercial shark fishermen must submit a completed Shark Research Fishery Permit Application by the deadline noted above (see <E T="02">DATES</E> ) showing that the vessel and owner(s) meet the specific criteria outlined below. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Shark Research Fishery Objectives</HD> As established in Amendment 2, each year, a shark board, which is comprised of NMFS representatives from the Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC) Panama City Laboratory, the Southeast Regional Office Protected Resources Division, and the HMS Management Division, develops the shark research fishery objectives for that year. The 2025 objectives are based on various documents, including the May 2020 Biological Opinion on the Operation of the Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Fisheries Excluding Pelagic Longline and stock assessments for various Atlantic shark species (stock assessments can be found at <E T="03">https://sedarweb.org/</E> ). The 2025 objectives are: • Collect reproductive, length, sex, and age data from sandbar and other sharks throughout the calendar year for species-specific stock assessments; • Monitor the size distribution of sandbar sharks and other species captured in the fishery; • Collect information regarding depredation events; • Continue ongoing shark tagging programs for identification of migration corridors and stock structure using dart and/or spaghetti tags; • Maintain time-series of abundance from previously derived indices for the sha ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 19k characters. 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