Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; 2025-2026 Specifications for the Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish Fishery Management Plan

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 648</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 250912-0153]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BN43</RIN> <SUBJECT>Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; 2025-2026 Specifications for the Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish 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 approves and implements 2025-2026 specifications for the Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish Fishery Management Plan (FMP), as recommended by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council). This action sets 2025 and projected 2026 butterfish fishery specifications and reaffirms 2025 chub mackerel, <E T="03">Illex</E> squid, longfin squid, and Atlantic mackerel fishery specifications. These final specifications are intended to establish allowable harvest levels that will prevent overfishing, consistent with the most recent scientific information. This action also adjusts the minimum square mesh size for directed butterfish trawl trips and corrects existing regulations. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective October 23, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> A Supplemental Information Report (SIR) was prepared for these specifications. Copies of the SIR and other relevant environmental documentation are available on request from Dr. Christopher M. Moore, Executive Director, Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, Suite 201, 800 North State Street, Dover, DE 19901. The SIR is also accessible via the internet at <E T="03">https://www.mafmc.org/supporting-documents.</E> Copies of the small entity compliance guide are available from Michael Pentony, Regional Administrator, NMFS, Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, 55 Great Republic Drive, Gloucester, MA 01930-2298, or available on the internet at <E T="03">https://www.greateratlantic.fisheries.noaa.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Maria Fenton, Fishery Policy Analyst, (978) 281-9196. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> NMFS and the Council manage fisheries for Atlantic mackerel, chub mackerel, <E T="03">Illex</E> squid, longfin squid, and butterfish pursuant to the Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish FMP. In 2023, the most recent year for which complete revenue data are available, these five species supported fisheries producing $46 million in revenues. Regulations implementing the Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish FMP appear at 50 CFR part 648, subpart B. Section 302(g)(1)(B) of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act; 16 U.S.C. 1852(g)(1)(B)) states that the Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) for each regional fishery management council shall provide its council with ongoing scientific advice for fishery management decisions, including recommendations for acceptable biological catch (ABC), preventing overfishing, ensuring maximum sustainable yield (MSY), and achieving rebuilding targets. The ABC is a level of catch that accounts for the scientific uncertainty in the estimate of the stock's defined overfishing limit (OFL). Section 303(c) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act (16 U.S.C. 1853(c)) allows a Council to submit proposed regulations that it deems necessary or appropriate for making modifications to regulations implementing an FMP or FMP amendment to the Secretary of Commerce. Section 304(b) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act (16 U.S.C. 1854(b)) requires the Secretary of Commerce to evaluate the Council's proposed regulations to determine whether they are consistent with the FMP, FMP amendment, the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and other applicable law. If that determination is affirmative, the Secretary must publish the proposed regulations in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> for public comment, and promulgate a final rule after the end of the comment period. The Council finalized its recommendations for 2025 and projected 2026 butterfish fishery specifications, and recommended reaffirming previously-projected 2025 Atlantic mackerel fishery specifications, during its October 2024 meeting, based on recommendations from its SSC. The Council also recommended reaffirming previously-projected 2025 specifications for the chub mackerel, <E T="03">Illex</E> squid, and longfin squid fisheries during its June 2024 meeting. Through this final rule, NMFS approves and implements the Council's recommended butterfish specifications pursuant to sections 303(c) and 304(b) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. NMFS also reaffirms previously-projected specifications and makes corrections to existing regulations pursuant to section 305(d) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which authorizes the Secretary to implement management measures necessary to carry out an approved fishery management plan. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Final 2025 and Projected 2026 Butterfish Specifications</HD> Relative to 2024, the 2025 butterfish fishery specifications will: • Increase the OFL by 9.3 percent; • Increase the ABC/annual catch limit (ACL) by 8.6 percent; • Lower the annual catch target (ACT) buffer to zero percent, resulting in a 14.3-percent increase in the ACT; • Increase assumed other discards by 52.8 percent and the total discard set-aside by 12.8 percent; • Maintain the butterfish discard cap in the longfin squid fishery; • Increase the domestic annual harvest (DAH) by 15.0 percent; and • Maintain the trimester allocations for the butterfish mortality cap. In 2026, the projected butterfish OFL, ABC, and ACT will decrease by 19.1 percent, and the projected DAH will decrease by 28.9 percent, relative to 2025. The remainder of the projected 2026 specifications will remain status quo relative to 2025 (table 1 and table 2). <GPOTABLE COLS="3" OPTS="L2,nj,i1" CDEF="s100,15,15"> <TTITLE>Table 1—Final 2025 and Projected 2026 Butterfish Specifications</TTITLE> [Metric tons, mt] <CHED H="1">Specification</CHED> <CHED H="1">2025</CHED> <CHED H="1">Projected 2026</CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">OFL</ENT> <ENT>17,587</ENT> <ENT>14,224</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">ABC/ACL</ENT> <ENT>17,115</ENT> <ENT>13,842</ENT> <ENT I="01">Research set-aside (RSA) *</ENT> <ENT>0</ENT> <ENT>0</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Total allowable level of foreign fishing (TALFF)</ENT> <ENT>0</ENT> <ENT>0</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Butterfish cap in longfin squid fishery</ENT> <ENT>3,884</ENT> <ENT>3,884</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Assumed other discards</ENT> <ENT>1,907</ENT> <ENT>1,907</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Total discard set-aside (all sources)</ENT> <ENT>5,791</ENT> <ENT>5,791</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">DAH/domestic annual processing (DAP)</ENT> <ENT>11,324</ENT> <ENT>8,051</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Closure threshold (amount caught)</ENT> <ENT>10,324</ENT> <ENT>7,051</ENT> </ROW> <TNOTE>* The Council's RSA program has been suspended since 2014.</TNOTE> </GPOTABLE> <GPOTABLE COLS="3" OPTS="L2,nj,i1" CDEF="s100,15,15"> <TTITLE>Table 2—Final 2025 and Projected 2026 Trimester Allocation of the Butterfish Mortality Cap for the Longfin Squid Fishery</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Trimester</CHED> <CHED H="1">Percent</CHED> <CHED H="1">Metric tons</CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">I (January-April)</ENT> <ENT>43</ENT> <ENT>1,670</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">II (May-August)</ENT> <ENT I="01">III (September-December)</ENT> <ENT>40</ENT> <ENT>1,554</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="03">Total</ENT> <ENT>100</ENT> <ENT>3,884</ENT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Reaffirmed 2025 Chub Mackerel, Longfin Squid, Illex Squid, and Atlantic Mackerel Specifications</HD> For multi-year specifications, the first year of specifications are implemented through the initial final rule, which includes projections of the additional years' specifications. Those projected specifications, after review to ensure no changes are necessary, are reaffirmed in subsequent rulemakings. Projected 2025 specifications for the remaining fisheries managed under the Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish FMP were included in several previous management actions: • Projected 2025 chub mackerel fishery specifications were included in the final rule implementing 2023-2025 specifications for the Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish FMP (88 FR 48389, July 27, 2023); • Projected 2025 <E T="03">Illex</E> and longfin squid fishery specifications were included in the final rule implementing 2024-2026 specifications for the Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish FMP (89 FR 59678, July 23, 2024); and • Projected 2025 Atlantic mackerel fishery specifications were included in the final rule implementing 2024 and projected 2025 Atlantic mackerel specifications (89 FR 25820, April 12, 2024). The proposed rule (90 FR 20265, May 13, 2025) noted that the 2024 Atlantic mackerel DAH was likely exceeded, with preliminary data through December 31, 2024, indicating that 116.6 percent of the DAH had been landed. At the time of publication of the proposed rule, NMFS was still waiting for complete state and recreational data in order to evaluate whether the Atlantic mackerel ACL had been exceeded, and if so, which AMs would need to be implemented in order to address the overage. The proposed rule explained that if these data became available before publication of the final rule, NMFS would announce the implementation of any necessary AMs through the final rule. NMFS subsequently received updated state and recreational data that indicate that the 2024 Atlantic mackerel ACL was not exceeded. Therefore, no AMs for Atlantic mackerel are being implemented through this final rule. Relative to 2024, the reaffirmed 2025 speci ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 23k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━