Fisheries of the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and South Atlantic; Snapper-Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic; Amendment 55

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 622</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 250813-0141]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BN30</RIN> <SUBJECT>Fisheries of the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and South Atlantic; Snapper-Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic; Amendment 55</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 comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS proposes regulations to implement Amendment 55 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Snapper-Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic (FMP), as prepared and submitted by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council). This proposed rule would remove yellowmouth grouper from the other South Atlantic shallow water grouper (other SASWG) complex and establish a new scamp and yellowmouth grouper complex. This proposed rule would establish catch levels, sector management measures, and accountability measures (AM) for the new scamp and yellowmouth grouper complex and establish catch levels for the revised other SASWG complex. In addition, Amendment 55 would establish a rebuilding plan, sector allocations, and status determination criteria (SDC) for the scamp and yellowmouth grouper complex. The purpose of this proposed rule and Amendment 55 is to rebuild the scamp and yellowmouth grouper stock, and achieve optimum yield (OY) while minimizing, to the extent practicable, adverse social and economic effects. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Written comments must be received on or before September 24, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> This proposed rule, including a plain language summary pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(4), is available at: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/NOAA-NMFS-2025-0132.</E> You may submit comments on the proposed rule, identified by “NOAA-NMFS-2024-0132,” 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-2024-0132”, in the Search box. Click the “Comment” icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach your comments. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Submit written comments to Nikhil Mehta, Southeast Regional Office, NMFS, 263 13th Avenue South, St. Petersburg, FL 33701. <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">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). Electronic copies of Amendment 55, which includes a fishery impact statement and a regulatory impact review, may be obtained from the Southeast Regional Office website at <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/action/amendment-55-establish-new-scamp-and-yellowmouth-grouper-complex-rebuilding-plan-catch.</E> The unique identification number for the environmental review for Amendment 55 is: EAXX-006-48-1SE-1730464344. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Nikhil Mehta, telephone: 727-824-5305, or email: <E T="03">nikhil.mehta@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> NMFS and the Council manage the South Atlantic snapper-grouper fishery, which includes scamp, yellowmouth grouper, and the species in the other SASWG complex, under the FMP. The FMP was prepared by the Council, approved by the Secretary of Commerce, and is implemented by NMFS through regulations at 50 CFR part 622 under the authority of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The Magnuson-Stevens Act requires that NMFS and regional fishery management councils prevent overfishing and achieve, on a continuing basis, the OY from federally managed fish stocks. These mandates are intended to ensure that fishery resources are managed for the greatest overall benefit to the Nation, particularly with respect to providing food production and recreational opportunities, and protecting marine ecosystems. To further this goal, the Magnuson-Stevens Act requires fishery managers to minimize bycatch and bycatch mortality to the extent practicable. This action is taken under the statutory authority of the Magnuson-Steven Act section 303(a)(1) as necessary and appropriate for the conservation and management of the fishery to prevent overfishing and to promote the long-term health and stability of the fishery. Unless otherwise noted, all weights in this proposed rule are described in round weight. The South Atlantic stock of scamp was assessed for the first time through the Southeast Data, Assessment, and Review (SEDAR) 68 Research Track (RT) assessment in September 2021 (SEDAR 68 RT [2021]). In 2020, the first stage of the SEDAR 68 data process was a Stock Identification (ID) Workshop (SEDAR 68 Stock ID Workshop [2020]), which concluded that scamp are very difficult to distinguish from yellowmouth grouper and thus, much of the assessment data likely represents both species in unknown proportions. The SEDAR 68 Stock ID Workshop (2020) recommended that the stock assessment be conducted on both scamp and yellowmouth grouper jointly, with the two species treated as a single complex because of the known species identification issues. This recommendation resulted in the SEDAR 68 Operational Assessment (OA), which was completed in 2022 (SEDAR 68 OA [2022]). The stock status for scamp and yellowmouth grouper was unknown prior to completion of the two assessments. The Council's Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) reviewed the SEDAR 68 OA (2022) at their April 2023 meeting. The assessment included data through 2021 and incorporated the revised landings estimates for recreational catch using the Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP) Fishing Effort Survey (FES). The results of the SEDAR 68 OA assessment indicated that the scamp and yellowmouth grouper stock is overfished but not undergoing overfishing. The Council's SSC determined that the assessment was conducted using the best scientific information available, and was adequate for determining stock status and supporting total fishing level recommendations. NMFS notified the Council of the overfished status of the scamp and yellowmouth grouper stock via letter dated September 21, 2023. Following a notification from NMFS to a Council that a stock is overfished, the Magnuson-Stevens Act requires the Council to develop an action to rebuild the affected stock. Therefore, the Council developed Amendment 55 to respond to the results of SEDAR 68 OA (2022). Amendment 25 to the FMP (Comprehensive Annual Catch Limit Amendment)(77 FR 15916, March 16, 2012) established single species and species complex annual catch limits (ACL) and AMs. Single species ACLs were established for assessed and targeted species, species where ACL=0, and species that could not be placed in a complex based on the criteria below. Scamp was one of the species that met the criteria for a single species ACL. Complex ACLs for groups of species were established for other snapper-grouper species using associations based on one or more of the following: life history, catch statistics from commercial logbook and observer data, recreational headboat logbook and private/charter survey data, and fishery-independent data. Based on the criteria for complex ACLs in Amendment 25, yellowmouth grouper was included in the other SASWG complex along with red hind, rock hind, yellowfin grouper, coney, and graysby. Regulatory Amendment 13 to the FMP updated the commercial and recreational ACLs for select unassessed species including scamp and yellowmouth grouper (78 FR 36113, June 17, 2013). Amendment 29 to the FMP established the current commercial and recreational ACLs for scamp and yellowmouth grouper (80 FR 30947, June 1, 2015). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Management Measures Contained in This Proposed Rule</HD> This proposed rule would remove yellowmouth grouper from the other SASWG complex and establish a new scamp and yellowmouth grouper complex. For the new complex, this proposed rule would establish the total ACL, sector ACLs, recreational bag limits, commercial trip limits, and AMs. This proposed rule would also revise the total ACL and sector ACLs for the species remaining within the other SASWG complex. Additionally, Amendment 55 would establish SDC and a rebuilding plan for the new scamp and yellowmouth grouper complex. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Reorganization of Complexes</HD> Yellowmouth grouper is currently part of the other SASWG complex containing rock hind, red hind, coney, graysby, yellowmouth grouper, and yellowfin grouper. This proposed rule would remove yellowmouth grouper from the other SASWG complex and establish a new complex containing both scamp and yellowmouth grouper. Rock hind, red hind, coney, graysby, and yellowfin grouper would remain in the reorganized other SASWG complex. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Scamp and Yellowmouth Grouper Complex Total ACL</HD> There is currently no acceptable biological catch (ABC) or total ACL for the new scamp and yellowmouth grouper complex. As described in Amendment 55, the ABC would be equal to the total ACL for the complex and an ABC would be established of 67,450 pounds (lb) (30 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 71k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━