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

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 648</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 241212-0325]</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> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS is implementing regulations for 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 recommended and NMFS approved. This action establishes area-based gear requirements for vessels fishing with gillnets in the monkfish fishery, starting on January 1, 2026, and for vessels fishing with gillnets in the spiny dogfish fishery starting on May 1, 2025. 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> Effective May 1, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Copies of the Framework 15/Framework 6 document, including the Regulatory Flexibility Act Analysis and other supporting documents for the measures, are available from Dr. Cate O'Keefe, Executive Director, New England Fishery Management Council, 50 Water Street, Mill 2, Newburyport, MA 01950 and Dr. Christopher M. 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</E> or <E T="03">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 both the Monkfish and Spiny Dogfish Fishery Management Plans (FMP). 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. Under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, we approve, disapprove, or partially approve measures that the Councils propose, based on consistency with the Act and other applicable law. We review proposed regulations for consistency with the FMP, plan amendment, the Magnuson-Stevens Act and other applicable law, and publish the proposed regulations, solicit public comment, and promulgate the final regulations. We have approved all of the measures in this joint framework action recommended by the Councils, as described below. The measures implemented in this final rule: • 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 May 1, 2025; 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 May 1, 2025. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Approved Measures</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">1. Low-Profile Gillnet Gear</HD> The regulations implemented by this final rule 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, beginning on January 1, 2026. Low-profile gillnet gear is defined in this final rule 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 by allowing the larger sturgeon to break the mesh. The requirement to use low-profile gillnet gear within the New Jersey Atlantic Sturgeon Bycatch Reduction Area will 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 time for affected members of the fishing industry to transition to new gear. The definition of the low-profile gillnet gear requires a twine size of 0.81 mm; however, this conflicts with current Harbor Porpoise Take Reduction Plan (HPTRP) Regulations, which require that large-mesh gillnet gear in the waters off the New Jersey Management Area have a twine size at least 0.9 mm in diameter from January 1 through April 30, except during April 1 through April 20 (50 CFR 229.34(b)(1)(ii)). The Harbor Porpoise Take Reduction Team (HPTRT) was asked by the Councils to consider whether this requirement could be modified to reduce the twine size required in the HPTRP regulations. On June 28, 2024, the HPTRT received a presentation regarding the potential impact of 0.81 mm mesh on harbor porpoise; the analysis presented showed that allowing the 0.81-mm twine size would not be anticipated to cause a statistically significant change in harbor porpoise bycatch relative to current conditions. The HPTRT did not voice any concerns over the proposed change in gear configuration nor the analysis of possible effects. The low-profile gillnet design is a new gear configuration for a large majority of the fleet. The transition to the new gear will require construction of new nets, which may take time on the part of gear manufacturers, who are limited in number. Thus, delaying this requirement until January 1, 2026, provides industry with the time necessary to acquire and familiarize itself with the new selective gear. <HD SOURCE="HD2">2. Overnight Soak Prohibitions</HD> Within the New Jersey Atlantic Sturgeon Bycatch Reduction Area, this action requires federally permitted spiny dogfish vessels fishing with roundfish gillnets ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> not tie-down gillnets) with a mesh size of 5 to 10 inches (12.7 to 25.4 cm) to remove nets from the water by 8 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) each day until 5 a.m. ET the following day. This requirement will be in place from May 1 through May 31 and November 1 through November 30 of each year, beginning May 1, 2025. This seasonal requirement is based on observer data showing that, of sturgeon takes observed from 2017-2019 and 2021-2022, takes by dogfish vessels within the New Jersey Atlantic Sturgeon Bycatch Reduction Area during May and November accounted for a combined 23 percent of all observed takes by dogfish vessels during the time period. In the Delaware and Maryland Sturgeon Bycatch Area and in the Virginia Atlantic Sturgeon Bycatch Reduction Area, this action requires federally permitted spiny dogfish vessels fishing with roundfish gillnets ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> not tie-down gillnets) with a mesh size of 5.25 to 10 inches (13.34 to 25.4 cm) to remove nets from the water by 8 p.m. ET each day until 5 a.m. ET the following day. This requirement is in place from November 1 through March 31 each year, beginning May 1, 2025. This seasonal requirement is based on observer data showing that, of sturgeon takes observed from 2017-2019 and 2 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 41k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━