Magnuson-Stevens Act Provisions; Fisheries Off West Coast States; Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery; Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan; Fixed Gear Marking and Entanglement Risk Reduction

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 660</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 260120-0031]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BN00</RIN> <SUBJECT>Magnuson-Stevens Act Provisions; Fisheries Off West Coast States; Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery; Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan; Fixed Gear Marking and Entanglement Risk Reduction</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> This proposed rule would implement gear marking requirements and entanglement risk reduction measures for portions of the Pacific coast groundfish fishery. This rulemaking will consist of mandatory requirements and voluntary measures. These new requirements and voluntary measures will be established pursuant to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. The intent of the gear marking requirements is to increase the likelihood of attributing entanglements to a specific fishery and gear type. The intent of the risk reduction measures is to reduce bycatch by decreasing the likelihood of marine animal entanglements with fishing line. NMFS requests public comment on these proposed requirements and voluntary measures. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received no later than March 9, 2026. </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-2024-0045.</E> You may submit comments on this document, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2024-0045, by the following method: • <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 type NOAA-NMFS-2024-0045 in the Search box. Click on the “Comment” icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach your comments. <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). • Written comments regarding the burden-hour estimates or other aspects of the collection-of-information requirements contained in this proposed rule may be submitted to NMFS West Coast Region and to <E T="03">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain.</E> Find this particular information collection by selecting “Currently under 30-day Review—Open for Public Comments” or by using the search function. An initial regulatory flexibility analysis was prepared and is available on the Pacific Fishery Management Council website at <E T="03">https://www.pcouncil.org.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Gretchen Hanshew, Fishery Management Specialist, at 206-526-6147 or <E T="03">gretchen.hanshew@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> This proposed rule includes gear marking requirements and entanglement risk reduction measures for portions of the Pacific coast groundfish fishery. These proposed measures are consistent with the authority provided through the Magnuson-Stevens Act section 303(a)(11) for conservation and management measures that, to the extent practicable, minimize bycatch; and with the authority provided at MSA section 303(b)(4) for measures that allow for prohibiting, limiting, conditioning, or requiring use of specified types of fishing gear. The framework for gear definitions and restrictions is described in the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan (PCGFMP) in Section 6.6, which notes that gear definitions and restrictions may be revised through a rulemaking process. Additionally, section 6.10.3 of the PCGFMP authorizes gear identification requirements, and provides that these requirements may be modified as necessary in Federal regulations. This rulemaking will consist of new mandatory requirements and voluntary measures and is proposed to be promulgated pursuant to the Magnuson-Stevens Act Section 303(c) and 304(b)(1)(A). The intent of the gear marking requirements for buoys and portions of lines is to increase the likelihood of attributing entanglements to a specific fishery. The intent of the risk reduction measures is to reduce bycatch by decreasing the likelihood of marine animal entanglements with fishing line. NMFS is proposing this rulemaking, in part, in response to increased rates of entanglement of humpback whales with Pacific coast fishing gear since 2014. This proposed rule also clarifies requirements regarding the position of escape panels on pot gear to prevent the escape panel from being on the bottom of the pot and promote similarity in escape panel requirements with Federal groundfish pot fisheries off Alaska. This rulemaking also proposes clarifications in longline regulations throughout 50 CFR part 660 for consistency with Council recommendations proposed in this rulemaking. This proposed rule is based on the Council's final recommendations for gear marking and entanglement risk reduction made at its June 2024 meeting in San Diego, CA. In developing the recommended measures, the Council considered the results of a 2022 workshop with the groundfish fishing industry, “Improving Gear Marking in the U.S. West Coast Sablefish Pot Fishery”, as well as reports from its advisory bodies and public testimony. Pursuant to MSA section 303(c)(2), the Council deemed the proposed regulations necessary and appropriate to implement these actions in a December 20, 2024, letter from Council Executive Director, Merrick Burden, to Regional Administrator Jennifer Quan. The proposed modifications to the regulations implementing the PCGFMP are consistent with the authority provided in the PCGFMP sections 6.6 and 6.10.3 for gear restrictions being described in regulation. We are seeking comments regarding whether vessel identification may be more legible on buoys compared to gear-specific tags, and, if more legible on buoys, whether there are logistical difficulties with painting or writing the vessel identification on each buoy. We also seek comments regarding the proposed information collection and the accuracy of our burden hour and cost estimates. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. The Needs and Scope of This Rulemaking</HD> Marine mammals and turtles are known to become entangled in fishing gear, which can impede foraging or cause serious injury or death to the entangled animal. Though relatively rare, the marine species most often observed entangled in the Pacific Coast groundfish fishery is humpback whales ( <E T="03">Megaptera novaeangliae</E> ). For this reason, we expect measures in this proposed rule to be most likely to have a positive effect on humpback whales, and therefore discuss this species in greater detail. In recent years since 2014, total instances of entanglement of humpback whales, including both listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and non-ESA listed, in fishing gear (or presumed fishing gear) off the U.S. west coast have increased compared to prior years. From 2005-2013 the average number of confirmed entanglements was less than four humpback whales per year. From 2014-2023, there were 223 total confirmed entanglements of humpback whales, an average of over 22 per year. Of those more recent entanglements, in only approximately 48 percent of instances was the fishing gear able to be identified to type and/or attributed to the fishery that was the source of the entangling gear. To continue development of measures that are effective at reducing risk of entanglements, NMFS needs to be able to identify which gear types are entangling protected species. Using this information, NMFS can develop appropriate fishery management actions in federally managed fisheries to mitigate risk of entanglement for protected species. Harvesters in a variety of West Coast fisheries use fishing gears that pose a risk of entanglement to protected species, including both ESA and non-ESA listed species. In the commercial groundfish fisheries off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and California use fishing gears known to entangle humpback whales, and fish in areas that overlap with humpback whale habitat. Specifically, between 2011 and 2023, there are five known entanglements of humpback whales with sablefish pot gear. Also, within the groundfish fishery, vessels that use bottom longline gear employ surface gear with buoys that also pose risks of entangling protected species. This proposed rule would require gear-specific marking for non-tribal commercial pot and bottom longline gears (as defined at § 660.11) (collectively referred to hereafter as fixed gear) that are used to harvest Pacific coast groundfish. The goal of this rulemaking is to enable NMFS, during an evaluation of available evidence regarding the source of an entanglement, to either attribute entanglements to bottom longline or pot gear used in the groundfish fishery, or eliminate the groundfish fixed gear fishery as the probable source. Sablefish pot gear is fished similarly to bottom longline gear; they target similar species in similar times and areas, sometimes on the same trips. When deployed, both are anchored to ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 75k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━