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]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RTID 0648-XE977</RIN> <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 Atlantic 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 to: one BFT per vessel per day/trip that can measure anywhere from 27 inches (68.5 cm) to less than 73 inches (185 cm) curved fork length (CFL) for private vessels with HMS Angling permits, and two BFT per vessel per day/trip measuring 27 inches (68.5 cm) to less than 73 inches (185 cm) CFL, only one of which can be a large school/small medium-sized fish (47 inches (119 cm) to less than 73 inches (185 cm) CFL), for charter boat vessels and headboat vessels with HMS Charter/Headboat permits when fishing recreationally for BFT. If needed, NMFS could take another action later in the year to modify these retention limits or close the fishery. 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 July 1, 2025 through December 31, 2025 or until NMFS via the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> announces another adjustment to the retention limit. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Brad McHale, <E T="03">brad.mchale@noaa.gov,</E> Ann Williamson, <E T="03">ann.williamson@noaa.gov,</E> or, Larry Redd, Jr., <E T="03">larry.redd@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 Atlantic 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 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 of 297.4 mt 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. The default Angling category daily retention limit is one school, large school, or small medium BFT per vessel per day/trip for HMS Angling permitted vessels and HMS Charter/Headboat permitted vessels when fishing recreationally for BFT (§ 635.23(b)(2)). NMFS recently adjusted the Angling category retention limits from the default daily retention limit 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, and two school BFT and zero large school/small medium BFT per vessel per day/trip for charter boat vessels and headboat vessels with HMS Charter/Headboat permits when fishing recreationally for BFT (90 FR 23457, June 3, 2025). <GPOTABLE COLS="2" OPTS="L2,i1" CDEF="s50,r200"> <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 types, such as private vessels, charter boats, or headboats. As described below, 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 BFT per vessel per day/trip that can measure anywhere from 27 inches (68.5 cm) to less than 73 inches (185 cm) CFL ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> one school, large school, or small medium BFT per vessel per day/trip). (2) For both charter boat vessels and headboat vessels with HMS Charter/Headboat permits when fishing recreationally for BFT, this action adjusts the limit to two BFT per vessel per day/trip measuring 27 inches (68.5 cm) to less than 73 inches (185 cm) CFL, only one of which can be a large school/small medium-sized fish (47 inches (119 cm) to less than 73 inches (185 cm) CFL). In other words, a charter boat vessel or headboat vessel could land two school-sized fish or could land one school-sized fish and one large school/small medium-sized fish. 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 2-day trip or makes two trips in 1 day, the day/trip retention limit of one BFT applies and may not be exceeded upon landing. If needed, NMFS could take another action later in the year to modify these retention limits or close the fishery. <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: NMFS considered the variations in seasonal distribution, abundance, and migration patterns of BFT, the effects of catch rates in one area precluding vessels in another area from having a reasonable opportunity to harvest a portion of the category's quota, and the optimization of fishing opportunities (§ 635.27(a)(7)(vii), (viii), and (x)). In doing so, NMFS also reviewed the latest information regarding landings and the availability of BFT on the fishing grounds (§ 635.27(a)(7)(ix)). Under the current daily retention limits, only school BFT may be retained by recreational fishermen. Due to the unpredictable nature of BFT availability on the fishing grounds, the migratory nature of this species, and the regional variations in the BFT fishery, school-sized BFT may only be available in certain areas and during certain times of the year. Currently, the distribution of school-sized BFT catch is more concentrated between northern New Jersey and Rhode Island than further north along the east coast. However, in the summer months, catches of large school/small medium sized BFT tend to range further north along the east coast to Massachusetts. Thus, large school/small medium BFT are more geographically spread out. Through this action, the allowance of large school/small medium sized BFT for retention would optimize fishing opportunities by providing additional flexibilities. Furthermore, this retention limit adjustment should provide more equitable fishing opportunities for fishermen along the entire coast to retain available BFT and harvest the available Angling category quota. These adjustments to the retention l ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 25k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━