Atlantic Highly Migratory Species; Exempted Fishing, Scientific Research, Display, and Shark Research Fishery Permits; Letters of Acknowledgement

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <RIN>RTID 0648-XF282</RIN> <SUBJECT>Atlantic Highly Migratory Species; Exempted Fishing, Scientific Research, Display, and Shark Research Fishery Permits; Letters of Acknowledgement</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of intent; request for comments; request for applications. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS announces its intent to issue exempted fishing permits (EFPs), scientific research permits (SRPs), display permits, shark research fishery permits, and letters of acknowledgement (LOAs) for Atlantic highly migratory species (HMS) in 2026. NMFS also requests applications for the 2026 shark research fishery. EFPs, SRPs, display permits, and shark research fishery permits exempt permit holders from specific portions of the regulations for the purposes of scientific research, data collection, and public display, among other things. The shark research fishery provides fishery-dependent and biological data collection to support stock assessments and other NMFS research and management objectives. LOAs acknowledge that researchers are conducting scientific research activities on board a scientific research vessel. Generally, exempted fishing and related permits are valid from the date of issuance through the end of the calendar year for which they are issued, unless otherwise specified in the permit, subject to the terms and conditions of individual permits. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Submit comments on the issuance of exempted fishing and related permits on or before January 14, 2026. Submit applications for the 2026 shark research fishery on or before January 14, 2026. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments on the issuance of exempted fishing and related permits by email to <E T="03">nmfs.hms.epfs@noaa.gov.</E> You may submit shark research fishery applications by email to <E T="03">nmfs.research.fishery@noaa.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For information regarding the issuance of exempted fishing and related permits, contact Ann Williamson, <E T="03">ann.williamson@noaa.gov,</E> at 301-427-8503. For information regarding the shark research fishery, contact Karyl Brewster-Geisz, <E T="03">karyl.brewster-geisz@noaa.gov,</E> or Delisse Ortiz, <E T="03">delisse.ortiz@noaa.gov,</E> at 301-427-8503. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> HMS fisheries (swordfish, sharks, tunas, and billfish) are managed under the 2006 Consolidated HMS Fishery Management Plan (FMP) and its amendments pursuant to the authority of 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. HMS implementing regulations are at 50 CFR part 635. The regulations specific to HMS exempted fishing and related permits can be found at § 635.32. The regulations specific to the shark research fishery can be found at §§ 635.24(a), 635.27(b) and 635.32(f). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Exempted Fishing and Related Permits</HD> NMFS issues exempted fishing and related permits in cases where HMS regulations ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> fishing seasons, prohibited species, authorized gear, closed areas, minimum sizes) may otherwise prohibit scientists and other interested parties from conducting scientific research; acquiring information and data related to HMS and fishing for HMS; enhancing safety at sea; collecting HMS for public education or display; investigating bycatch, economic discards, or regulatory discards in HMS fisheries; or conducting other fishing activities that NMFS has an interest in permitting or acknowledging. Consistent with §§ 600.745 and 635.32, a NMFS Regional Administrator or Director may authorize, for limited testing, public display, data collection, exploratory fishing, compensation fishing, conservation engineering, health and safety surveys, environmental cleanup, and/or hazard removal purposes, the target or incidental harvest of species managed under an FMP or fishery regulations that would otherwise be prohibited. These permits exempt permit holders from the specific portions of the regulations that may otherwise be prohibited. Collection of HMS under exempted fishing and related permits represents a small portion of the overall fishing mortality for HMS, and NMFS counts this mortality against the relevant quota, as appropriate and applicable. The terms and conditions of individual permits are unique; however, all permits include reporting requirements, limit the number and/or species of HMS to be collected (if appropriate), and only authorize collection and/or other research activities in Federal waters of the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of America, and Caribbean Sea (for Atlantic tunas, we may authorize the activities all the way to shore). The Magnuson-Stevens Act exempts any scientific research activity conducted by a scientific research vessel from the definition of “fishing.” NMFS issues LOAs acknowledging such bona fide research activities involving species that are directly regulated only under the Magnuson-Stevens Act ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> most shark species) and not under ATCA. NMFS generally does not consider recreational or commercial vessels to be bona fide research vessels. However, if the researcher contracts a vessel only to conduct research and not participate in any commercial or recreational fishing activities during that research, NMFS may consider those vessels as bona fide research platforms while conducting the specified research. For example, in the past, NMFS has determined that commercial pelagic longline fishing vessels assisting with shark population surveys may be considered “bona fide research vessels” while engaged only in the specified research. For such activities, NMFS reviews the scientific research plans and may issue an LOA acknowledging that the proposed activity is scientific research for purposes of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. While scientific research is not defined as “fishing” subject to the Magnuson-Stevens Act, scientific research is not exempt from regulation under ATCA. Therefore, NMFS issues SRPs that authorize researchers to conduct scientific research related to HMS from bona fide research vessels for species managed directly under this statute ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> swordfish, tunas, and billfish). One example of research conducted under SRPs would be swordfish, tunas, and billfish scientific surveys conducted from NOAA research vessels. NMFS issues EFPs for activities conducted from commercial or recreational fishing vessels. Examples of activities conducted under EFPs include collection of young-of-the-year bluefin tuna for genetic research from recreational fishing vessels; conducting billfish larval tows to determine billfish habitat use, life history, and population structure from private vessels; and tagging sharks caught on commercial or recreational fishing gear to determine post-release mortality rates from commercial or recreational fishing vessels. NMFS issues display permits for the collection of HMS for public display. Collection of HMS for public display in aquaria often involves collection when the commercial fishing seasons are closed, collection of otherwise prohibited species ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> sand tiger sharks), and collection of fish below the regulatory minimum size. Not all HMS can be collected for public display. NMFS published the final rule for Amendment 2 to the HMS FMP (73 FR 35778, June 24, 2008; corrected 73 FR 40658, July 15, 2008) that, among other things, prohibited the collection of dusky sharks for public display. In 2022, NMFS published a final rule (87 FR 39373, July 1, 2022) that, among other things, prohibited the collection of shortfin mako sharks for public display. Most exempted fishing and related permits described in this annual notice relate to scientific sampling and tagging of HMS within existing quotas, and the impacts of these activities were previously analyzed in various environmental assessments and environmental impact statements for HMS management. NMFS' intent generally is to issue these permits without additional opportunity for public comment beyond what is provided in this notice. However, occasionally, NMFS receives applications which may warrant further consideration, such as those for unanticipated research activities, for research that is outside the scope of general scientific sampling and tagging of HMS, or for research that is particularly controversial. In those instances, NMFS will provide additional opportunity for public comment, consistent with the regulations at § 600.745. On May 10, 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency published a notice announcing the availability of the Final Environmental Impact Statement for Amendment 15 to the HMS FMP (89 FR 40481). In Amendment 15, NMFS prefers an alternative that would allow for cooperative research via an EFP within the various areas that are currently closed to pelagic longline fishing. NMFS would use the data collected to help assess the effectiveness of the pelagic longline closed areas. At this time, NMFS has not yet published any final rule for Amendment 15. NMFS is not aware of any researchers who plan to conduct research specific to the objectives in Amendment 15 in the closed areas in 2026. If after the publication of any final rule, NMFS receives such applications, NMFS may consider providing additio ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 31k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━