Fishery Management Plans of St. Croix and St. Thomas and St. John; Queen Triggerfish Management Measures

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 622</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 250923-0159]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BN62</RIN> <SUBJECT>Fishery Management Plans of St. Croix and St. Thomas and St. John; Queen Triggerfish Management Measures</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 to implement management measures described in Framework Action 3 under both the St. Croix Fishery Management Plan (FMP) and the St. Thomas and St. John FMP (collectively Framework Action 3), as prepared by the Caribbean Fishery Management Council (Council). If implemented, this proposed rule would modify the annual catch limits (ACLs) for queen triggerfish in Federal waters around St. Croix and in Federal waters around St. Thomas and St. John. The purpose of this proposed rule and Framework Action 3 is to update management reference points for queen triggerfish under the St. Croix FMP and the St. Thomas and St. John FMP consistent with the most recent stock assessments to prevent overfishing and achieve optimum yield (OY). </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Written comments must be received by November 3, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> A plain language summary of this proposed rule is available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/NOAA-NMFS-2025-0032.</E> You may submit comments on this document, identified by “NOAA-NMFS-2025-0032” by either of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Submission:</E> Submit all electronic public comments via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. Visit <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and enter “NOAA-NMFS-2025-0032” in the Search box. Click on the “Comment” icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach your comments. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Submit all written comments to Sarah Stephenson, 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">https://www.regulations.gov</E> without change. All personal identifying information ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> name, address, <E T="03">etc.</E> ), 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 Framework Action 3, which includes an environmental assessment, a regulatory impact review, and a Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) analysis, may be obtained from the Southeast Regional Office website at <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/action/framework-action-3-under-st-croix-and-st-thomas-and-st-john-fishery-management-plans.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Sarah Stephenson, 727-824-5305, <E T="03">sarah.stephenson@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> NMFS, with the advice of the Council, manages the St. Croix fishery and St. Thomas and St. John fishery under the St. Croix FMP and the St. Thomas and St. John FMP. Queen triggerfish is managed as an individual stock under each FMP. NMFS implements the St. Croix FMP and the St. Thomas and St. John FMP 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 NMFS to prevent overfishing and to achieve, on a continuing basis, the OY from federally managed fish stocks 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. This action is taken under the statutory authority of the Magnuson-Stevens 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. The St. Croix FMP and St. Thomas and St. John FMP were approved by the Secretary of Commerce on September 22, 2020, along with the Puerto Rico FMP, under section 304(a)(3) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. NMFS published the final rule to implement the FMPs on September 13, 2022 (87 FR 56204), which took effect on October 13, 2022. Each FMP contains management measures applicable for Federal waters off the respective island management area, including the current ACL values for the St. Croix and the St. Thomas and St. John queen triggerfish stocks. Federal regulations at 50 CFR part 622 subparts T and U describe management measures for St. Croix and for St. Thomas and St. John, respectively. Federal waters around St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. John extend seaward from 3 nautical miles (5.6 kilometers) from shore of each island district to the offshore boundary of the U.S. Caribbean exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The St. Croix FMP and St. Thomas and St. John FMP established status determination criteria (SDC) and other management reference points for queen triggerfish in Federal waters around each management area. Each FMP applies a four-tiered acceptable biological catch (ABC) control rule depending on differing levels of data availability. Each tier specifies SDC, such as the maximum fishing mortality threshold (MFMT), minimum stock size threshold (MSST), and overfishing limit (OFL), or OFL proxy, and other reference points such as the maximum sustainable yield (MSY), or MSY proxy, and ABC. Under the ABC control rule, tier 1 applies to stocks with the most data available, and each subsequent tier operates with less available data than the preceding tier. Tier 4, the final tier, is the most data limited and applies when no accepted quantitative assessment is available. Tier 4 contains two sub-tiers, tier 4a and tier 4b, which are based on an understanding of the stock's vulnerability to fishing pressure. Tier 4a applies when the stock's vulnerability to fishing pressure is relatively low or moderate, while tier 4b applies to stocks with a high vulnerability to fishing pressure. In both the St. Croix FMP and St. Thomas and St. John FMP, queen triggerfish is considered a tier 4a stock and the MSY proxy, MFMT, and MSST were defined, but as a result of data limitations, were not quantified. Similarly, the OFL for each stock could not be quantified. As such, a new reference point, the sustainable yield level (SYL), was quantified and used as the OFL proxy. The SYL is a level of landings that can be sustained by a stock over the long-term. For queen triggerfish in each FMP, the Council's Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) derived the ABC from the SYL, and the Council recommended the ACL for the stock be equal to 95 percent of the SSC's recommended ABC. The ACL was set equal to OY. All weights described in this proposed rule are in round weight. For the St. Croix queen triggerfish stock, the ACL is 21,450 pounds (lb; 9,729.5 kilograms [kg]). For the St. Thomas and St. John queen triggerfish stock, the ACL is 97,670 lb (44,302.3 kg). In 2024, the Southeast Data, Assessment, and Review (SEDAR) stock assessments were completed for queen triggerfish in St. Croix and in St. Thomas and St. John (SEDAR 80). The Council's SSC reviewed results from SEDAR 80 in April 2024, and determined that the stock assessments were suitable for short-term ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> <5 years) management advice. The SSC recommended ABCs for the St. Croix and St. Thomas and St. John queen triggerfish stocks using Tier 3b of the ABC control rule in each FMP. Under Tier 3b, the ABC is derived from the OFL by applying a buffer to account for scientific uncertainty (ABC = buffer * OFL), where the buffer must be less than or equal to 0.9. The OFL values projected by the SEDAR 80 models used a fishing mortality rate at MSY (F <E T="52">MSY</E> ) proxy based on a spawning potential ratio of 0.4. The constant catch at the F <E T="52">MSY</E> proxy was used to establish the ABC. The OFL values and buffers used to set the ABC from the OFL varied for years 2024 through 2027. The ABC values recommended for queen triggerfish in St. Croix and in St. Thomas and St. John for years 2024 through 2027 were a constant value. NMFS notes that Framework Action 3 includes recommended OFLs and ABCs for fishing year 2024. However, due to delays in development of the action and implementation of the proposed rule, the SYL and ABC for queen triggerfish specified under the St. Croix FMP and the St. Thomas and St. John FMP were the OFL proxy and ABC effective for fishing year 2024. Under tier 3, if the biomass of the stock goes below MSST, the stock would be determined to be overfished and the Council would need to develop a rebuilding plan capable of returning the stock to a level that allows the stock to achieve MSY on a continuing basis. Additionally, under tier 3, in years when there is a stock assessment, the stock would be considered to be undergoing overfishing if fishing mortality exceeds the MFMT. This level of fishing mortality, if continued, would reduce the stock biomass to an overfished condition. In years in which there is no assessment, the stock complex would be considered to be undergoing overfishing if landings exceed the OFL. The SSC presented its ABC recommendations for St. Croix queen triggerfish and St ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 23k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━