Fisheries of the Caribbean, Gulf of America, and South Atlantic; Fishery Management Plans of Puerto Rico, St. Croix, and St. Thomas and St. John; Amendment 2

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Parts 600 and 622</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 250915-0853]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BM94</RIN> <SUBJECT>Fisheries of the Caribbean, Gulf of America, and South Atlantic; Fishery Management Plans of Puerto Rico, St. Croix, and St. Thomas and St. John; Amendment 2</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 issues regulations to implement management measures described in Amendment 2 to the Fishery Management Plans (FMPs) for Puerto Rico, St. Croix, St. Thomas and St. John FMP (Amendment 2), as prepared by the Caribbean Fishery Management Council (Council). This final rule prohibits and restricts the use of certain net gear in U.S. Caribbean Federal waters and requires a descending device to be available and ready for use on vessels when fishing for federally managed reef fish species in U.S. Caribbean Federal waters. The purpose of this final rule and Amendment 2 is to protect habitats and species from the potential negative impacts associated with the use of certain net gear and to enhance the survival of released reef fish in U.S. Caribbean Federal waters. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective November 3, 2025, except for the revisions for §§ 622.437(a)(4), 622.477(a)(4), and 622.512(a)(4), which are effective April 1, 2026. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Electronic copies of Amendment 2, which includes a fishery impact statement, 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/amendment-2-puerto-rico-st-croix-and-st-thomas-and-st-john-fishery-management-plans-trawl.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Maria Lopez-Mercer, NMFS Southeast Regional Office, 727-824-5305, <E T="03">maria.lopez@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> NMFS, with the advice of the Council, manages the Puerto Rico, St. Croix, and St. Thomas and St. John fisheries in U.S. Caribbean Federal waters under the Puerto Rico, St. Croix, and St. Thomas and St. John FMPs. The Council prepared the FMPs, which the Secretary of Commerce approved, and NMFS implements the FMPs through regulations at 50 CFR parts 600 and 622 under the authority of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act). On August 27, 2024, NMFS published a notice of availability for Amendment 2 and requested public comment (89 FR 68572). On September 30, 2024, NMFS published a proposed rule for Amendment 2 and requested public comment (89 FR 79492). NMFS approved Amendment 2 on November 26, 2024. The proposed rule and Amendment 2 outline the rationale for the actions contained in this final rule. A summary of the management measures described in Amendment 2 and implemented by this final rule is included. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The Magnuson-Stevens Act requires NMFS and the regional fishery management councils to prevent overfishing and achieve, on a continuing basis, the optimum yield 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. The Magnuson-Stevens Act authorizes the Council and NMFS to regulate fishing activity to support the conservation and management of federally managed fisheries, which may include regulations that pertain to fishing for non-managed species ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> species that are not managed under an FMP). 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. On September 22, 2020, the Secretary of Commerce approved the Puerto Rico, St. Croix, and St. Thomas and St. John FMPs under section 304(a)(3) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. The FMPs took effect on October 13, 2022, after NMFS published the final rule to implement the FMPs (87 FR 56204, September 13, 2022). Each FMP contains management measures applicable for Federal waters in the respective island management area, including allowable fishing gear and harvest methods for species managed under each FMP. Federal regulations at 50 CFR part 622, subparts S, T, and U describe management measures for Puerto Rico, St. Croix, and St. Thomas and St. John, respectively. Federal waters around Puerto Rico extend seaward from 9 nautical miles (nmi) or 16.7 kilometers (km) from shore to the offshore boundary of the U.S. Caribbean exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Federal waters around St. Croix and St. Thomas and St. John extend seaward from 3 nmi (5.6 km) from shore to the offshore boundary of the U.S. Caribbean EEZ. In addition to regulations specific to each FMP, Federal regulations at 50 CFR 600.725(v) identify the fishing gear authorized for federally managed and non-federally managed fisheries of each fishery management council (see part V for the Caribbean Fishery Management Council). Employing fishing gear or engaging in fishing in a fishery that is not included on the list of authorized fisheries and authorized gear types is prohibited. However, an individual fisherman may notify the relevant Fishery Management Council of the intent to use a fishing gear or participate in a fishery that is not on the authorized list (50 CFR 600.725(v)). Ninety days after such notification to the Council, the individual may use such fishing gear or participate in the fishery unless regulatory action is taken to prohibit the use of the gear or participation in the fishery. In Federal waters around Puerto Rico, St. Croix, and St. Thomas and St. John, gillnets are listed as an authorized gear type for the commercial federally managed and non-federally managed pelagic fisheries, as well as all other commercial non-federally managed fisheries located in U.S. Caribbean Federal waters. Trawl nets are listed as an authorized gear type for the commercial non-federally managed fisheries, other than the non-managed pelagic fisheries. Purse seines and trammel nets are not listed as authorized fishing gear for any fishery (managed or non-managed) in U.S. Caribbean Federal waters. At its December 2021 meeting, the Council discussed prohibiting the use of trawl gear, trammel nets, purse seines, and gillnets for all fishing in U.S. Caribbean Federal waters as a precautionary approach to prevent potential negative impacts from the use of these fishing gear types on sensitive habitats present in U.S. Caribbean Federal waters and to eliminate the potential for bycatch associated with each of these types of fishing gear. During the development of Amendment 2, when considering the use of gillnet gear, the Council recommended restricting the use of gillnets such that it would only be allowed for fishing in non-managed fisheries to accommodate fishermen who use gillnet gear at the surface to catch baitfish. Currently, gear-specific regulations in U.S. Caribbean Federal waters prohibit the use of gillnets and trammel nets in the federally managed reef fish and spiny lobster fisheries. These regulations require that any gillnet or trammel net used to fish for any other species must be tended at all times (50 CFR 622.437(a)(3) and (c)(2); 50 CFR 622.477(a)(3) and (c)(2); 50 CFR 622.512(a)(3) and (c)(2)). Gillnets and trammel nets are also prohibited for use year-round in the seven federally-managed seasonally closed areas: Puerto Rico—(1) Abrir La Sierra Bank (50 CFR 622.439(a)(1)(ii)), (2) Tourmaline Bank (50 CFR 622.439(a)(2)(ii)), (3) Bajo de Sico (50 CFR 622.439(a)(3)(ii)); U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI)—(4) Mutton Snapper Spawning Aggregation Area (50 CFR 622.479(a)(1)(ii)), (5) Red Hind Spawning Aggregation Area east of St. Croix (50 CFR 622.479(a)(2)(ii)), (6) Grammanik Bank (50 CFR 622.514(a)(1)(ii)), and (7) Hind Bank Marine Conservation District (50 CFR 622.514(a)(2)). Though trawl gear, trammel nets, purse seines, and gillnets are used infrequently, if at all, by commercial or recreational fishermen in Federal waters around Puerto Rico, St. Croix, or St. Thomas and St. John, the Council recommended being proactive in protecting marine resources and recommended regulatory action to prohibit or restrict the use of these fishing gear types in U.S. Caribbean Federal waters. Currently, trawl gear, which includes bottom and mid-water trawls, is listed as an authorized fishing gear type for commercial non-federally managed fisheries, other than the non-managed pelagic fisheries under each FMP (part V of the table to 50 CFR 600.725(v)). As described in Amendment 2, there is no evidence that commercial fishermen use or have ever used trawl gear in Federal waters around any of the island management areas, except for limited exploratory research ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> for commercial fishing purposes) conducted in the early 1900s. As discussed, the use of trammel net gear is currently prohibited in the federally managed reef fish and spiny lobster fisheries in Federal waters around Puerto Rico, St. Croix, and St. Thomas and St. John. Trammel nets are not listed in part V of the table to 50 CFR 600.725(v) as an authorized fishing gear type in any managed or non-managed fisheries in Federal waters around Puerto Rico, St. Croix, and St. Thomas and St. John. As described in Amendment 2, some trammel net landings of non-managed species such ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 48k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━