Atlantic Highly Migratory Species; Atlantic Bluefin Tuna Fisheries; Angling Category Retention Limit Adjustment

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 635</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 220919-0193; RTID 0648-XE934]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Atlantic Highly Migratory Species; Atlantic Bluefin Tuna Fisheries; Angling Category Retention Limit Adjustment</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Temporary rule; retention limit adjustment. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS has determined, based on consideration of the regulatory determination criteria regarding inseason adjustments, that the Atlantic bluefin tuna (BFT) daily retention limit that applies to Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Angling and HMS Charter/Headboat permitted vessels (when fishing recreationally for BFT) should be adjusted for the remainder of 2025, or until further modified. NMFS is adjusting the Angling category BFT daily retention limit from the default of one school, large school, or small medium BFT to: one school BFT and zero large school/small medium BFT per vessel per day/trip for private vessels with HMS Angling permits; two school BFT and zero large school/small medium BFT per vessel per day/trip for charter boat vessels with HMS Charter/Headboat permits when fishing recreationally for BFT; and two school BFT and zero large school/small medium BFT per vessel per day/trip for headboat vessels with HMS Charter/ Headboat permits when fishing recreationally for BFT. These retention limits are effective in all areas, except for the Gulf of America, where targeted fishing for BFT is prohibited. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective June 3, 2025 through December 31, 2025 or until NMFS via a notice in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> announces another adjustment to the retention limit. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Larry Redd, Jr., <E T="03">larry.redd@noaa.gov,</E> or Ann Williamson, <E T="03">ann.williamson@noaa.gov,</E> by email or by phone at 301-427-8503. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Atlantic BFT fisheries are managed under the 2006 Consolidated Highly Migratory Species Fishery Management Plan (HMS FMP) and its amendments, pursuant to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act; 16 U.S.C. 1801 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) and consistent with the Atlantic Tunas Convention Act (ATCA; 16 U.S.C. 971 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). ATCA is the implementing statute for binding recommendations of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). The HMS FMP and its amendments are implemented by regulations are at 50 CFR part 635. Section 635.27(a) divides the U.S. BFT quota, established by ICCAT and as implemented by the United States among the various domestic fishing categories, per the allocations established in the HMS FMP and its amendments. NMFS is required under the Magnuson-Stevens Act at 16 U.S.C. 1854(g)(1)(D) to provide U.S. fishing vessels with a reasonable opportunity to harvest quotas under relevant international fishery agreements such as the ICCAT Convention, which is implemented domestically pursuant to ATCA. On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order (E.O.) 14172 (Restoring Names that Honor American Greatness). As part of the order, the Gulf of Mexico is renamed as the Gulf of America. Consistent with the order, this action uses Gulf of America for all references to the area known as the Gulf of Mexico in the specific regulations at 50 CFR part 635. As described in § 635.27(a), the current baseline U.S. BFT quota is 1,316.14 metric tons (mt) (not including the 25-mt ICCAT allocated to the United States to account for bycatch of BFT in pelagic longline fisheries in the Northeast Distant Gear Restricted Area). The Angling category baseline quota is 297.4 mt. This baseline quota is further subdivided into subquotas by size class (see table 1) as follows: 134.1 mt for school BFT, 154.1 mt for large school/small medium BFT, and 9.2 mt for large medium/giant BFT. Large school and small medium BFT traditionally have been managed as one size class, <E T="03">i.e.,</E> a limit of one large school/small medium BFT (measuring 47 to less than 73 inches (119 to less than 150 cm)). Similarly, large medium and giant BFT traditionally have been managed as one size class that is also known as the “trophy” class. Currently, the default Angling category daily retention limit of one school, large school, or small medium BFT is in effect and applies to HMS Angling and HMS Charter/Headboat permitted vessels (when fishing recreationally for BFT) (§ 635.23(b)(2)). <GPOTABLE COLS="2" OPTS="L2,i1" CDEF="s100,r300"> <TTITLE>Table 1—BFT Size Classes</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Size class</CHED> <CHED H="1">Curved fork length</CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">School</ENT> <ENT>27 to less than 47 inches (68.5 to less than 119 cm).</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Large school</ENT> <ENT>47 to less than 59 inches (119 to less than 150 cm).</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Small medium</ENT> <ENT>59 to less than 73 inches (150 to less than 185 cm).</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Large medium</ENT> <ENT>73 to less than 81 inches (185 to less than 206 cm).</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Giant</ENT> <ENT>81 inches or greater (206 cm or greater).</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Adjustment of Angling Category Daily Retention Limit</HD> Under § 635.23(b)(3), NMFS may increase or decrease the Angling category daily retention limit for any size class of BFT after considering the regulatory determination criteria under § 635.27(a)(7). Also under § 635.23(b)(3), recreational retention limits may be adjusted separately for specific vessel type, such as private vessels, charter boats, or headboats. NMFS has considered all of the relevant determination criteria and their applicability to the change in the Angling category retention limit. After considering these criteria, NMFS has decided to adjust the Angling category retention limit as follows: (1) For private vessels with HMS Angling permits, this action adjusts the limit to one school BFT and zero large school/small medium BFT per vessel per day/trip ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> one BFT measuring 27 to less than 47 inches (68.5 to less than 119 cm) and zero BFT measuring 47 to less than 73 inches (119 to less than 185 cm)). (2) For charter boat vessels with HMS Charter/Headboat permits, this action adjusts the limit to two school BFT and zero large school/small medium BFT per vessel per day/trip when fishing recreationally for BFT ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> two BFT measuring 27 to less than 47 inches (68.5 to less than 119 cm) and zero BFT measuring 47 to less than 73 inches (119 to less than 185 cm)). (3) For headboat vessels with HMS Charter/Headboat permits, this action adjusts the limit to two school BFT and zero large school/small medium BFT per vessel per day/trip when fishing recreationally for BFT ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> two BFT measuring 27 to less than 47 inches (68.5 to less than 119 cm) and zero BFT measuring 47 to less than 73 inches (119 to less than 185 cm)). Regardless of the duration of a fishing trip, no more than a single day's retention limit may be possessed or retained at the end of the trip upon landing. For example, whether a private vessel (fishing under the Angling category retention limit) takes a two-day trip or makes two trips in one day, the day/trip retention limit of one school BFT and zero large school/small medium BFT applies and may not be exceeded upon landing. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Consideration of the Determination Criteria</HD> As described above, under § 635.23(b)(3), NMFS may increase or decrease the retention limit for any size class of BFT, or change a vessel trip limit to an angler trip limit and vice versa after considering the regulatory determination criteria under § 635.27(a)(7). These considerations include, but are not limited to, the following: Regarding the usefulness of information obtained from catches in the particular category for biological sampling and monitoring of the status of the stock (§ 635.27(a)(7)(i)), biological samples collected from BFT landed by recreational fishermen continue to provide NMFS with valuable parts and data for ongoing scientific studies of BFT age and growth, migration, and reproductive status. Additional opportunity to land BFT in the Angling category would support the continued collection of a broad range of data for these studies and for stock monitoring purposes. NMFS also considered the catches of the Angling category quota to date and the likelihood of closure of that segment of the fishery if no adjustment is made (§ 635.27(a)(7)(ii)). In addition to Angling category landings to date in 2025, NMFS considered Angling category landings in 2024, which totaled 452.7 mt, exceeding the 297.4 mt annual Angling category quota by 52 percent. School and large school/small medium BFT landings totaled 152.6 mt and 281.6 mt, exceeding the school and large school/small medium BFT subquotas by 14 percent and 83 percent, respectively. NMFS notes that the daily retention limits for private, charter boat, and headboat vessels in 2024 were higher than the daily retention limits established in this action. Given fishery performance in recent years and the high availability of BFT on fishing grounds, it is very likely that under the default daily retention limits, which allows fishermen to land heavier-weight large school/small medium BFT the recreational fishery could reach the available 2025 Angling category quota and subquotas relatively early in the season resulting in a premature closure of the recreational BFT fisheries. As such, NMFS believes adjusting th ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 22k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━