[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 162 (Thursday, August 21, 2014)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 49487-49490]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-19839]
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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
50 CFR Part 679
RIN 0648-BC34
Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Pacific Cod
Pot Gear Fishing Closure in the Pribilof Islands Habitat Conservation
Zone in the Bering Sea and Rebuilding Pribilof Islands Blue King Crab
AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and
[[Page 49488]]
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce.
ACTION: Notice of availability of fishery management plan amendments;
request for comments.
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SUMMARY: The North Pacific Fishery Management Council has submitted
Amendment 103 to the Fishery Management Plan for Groundfish of the
Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area (BSAI FMP) and
Amendment 43 to the Fishery Management Plan for Bering Sea/Aleutian
Islands King and Tanner Crabs (Crab FMP). If approved, Amendment 103
would close year-round the Pribilof Islands Habitat Conservation Zone
(PIHCZ) to directed fishing for Pacific cod with pot gear. Prohibiting
directed fishing for Pacific cod with pot gear in the PIHCZ would
reduce the bycatch of Pribilof Islands blue king crab (PIBKC), prevent
overfishing, and support rebuilding of the PIBKC stock. If approved,
Amendment 43 would amend the Crab FMP to revise the rebuilding plan for
PIBKC. These actions are intended to promote the goals and objectives
of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the
FMPs, and other applicable law. Comments from the public are
encouraged.
DATES: Comments on the amendment must be received on or before 1700
hours, Alaska local time (A.l.t.), October 20, 2014.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments on this document, identified by
NOAA-NMFS-2012-0141, by any of the following methods:
Electronic Submission: Submit all electronic public
comments via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. Go to
www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;D=NOAA-NMFS-2012-0141, click the
``Comment Now!'' icon, complete the required fields, and enter or
attach your comments.
Mail: Address written comments to Glenn Merrill, Assistant
Regional Administrator, Sustainable Fisheries Division, Alaska Region
NMFS, Attn: Ellen Sebastian. Mail comments to P.O. Box 21668, Juneau,
AK 99802-1668.
Instructions: 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
www.regulations.gov without change. All personal identifying
information (e.g., name, address), 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).
Attachments to electronic comments will be accepted in Microsoft Word,
Excel, or Adobe PDF file formats only.
Electronic copies of Amendment 103 to the BSAI FMP, Amendment 43 to
the Crab FMP, the Environmental Assessment (EA), and the Regulatory
Impact Review/Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (RIR/IRFA)
prepared for this proposed action are available from
www.regulations.gov or from the NMFS Alaska Region Web site at http://alaskafisheries.noaa.gov.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Sarah Ellgen, 907-586-7228.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: NMFS manages the Bering Sea and Aleutian
Islands Management Area (BSAI) groundfish fisheries in the exclusive
economic zone off Alaska under the BSAI FMP. The Fishery Management
Plan for Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands King and Tanner Crabs (Crab FMP)
establishes a State and Federal cooperative management regime that
defers crab fisheries management to the State of Alaska with Federal
oversight. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council)
prepared the FMPs under the authority of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery
Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act), 16 U.S.C. 1801
et seq. Regulations governing U.S. fisheries and implementing the FMPs
appear at 50 CFR parts 600, 679, and 680. State regulations for
managing the BSAI king and Tanner crab fisheries are subject to the
provisions of the Crab FMP, including its goals and objectives, the
Magnuson-Stevens Act, and other applicable Federal laws.
The Magnuson-Stevens Act requires that each regional fishery
management council submit any FMP amendment it prepares to NMFS for
review and approval, disapproval, or partial approval by the Secretary
of Commerce. The Magnuson-Stevens Act also requires that NMFS, upon
receiving an FMP amendment, immediately publish a document in the
Federal Register announcing that the amendment is available for public
review and comment. This document announces that proposed Amendment 103
to the BSAI FMP and proposed Amendment 43 to the Crab FMP are available
for public review and comment.
If approved, Amendment 103 to the BSAI FMP would revise the fishing
prohibition for the PIHCZ (Figure 1) to prohibit directed fishing for
Pacific cod with pot gear. If approved, Amendment 43 to the Crab FMP
would revise the rebuilding plan for the PIBKC.
Background
Blue king crabs are found in isolated populations and do not exist
uniformly across the Bering Sea. NMFS and the Alaska Department of Fish
and Game (ADF&G) manage these isolated populations as distinct stocks
where they occur. The PIBKC stock occurs around the islands of Saint
Paul and Saint George in the Bering Sea. The PIBKC fishery was first
opened in 1973. Total biomass and abundance peaked in the early 1980s.
Over the last 20 years, the PIBKC stock abundance decreased relative to
its peak abundance, and NMFS and ADF&G have implemented a number of
increasingly conservative management measures to limit potentially
adverse fishery effects on the stock.
Since 1999, as part of the joint management of the crab stocks
under the Crab FMP, the ADF&G has closed the PIBKC fishery and the
Pribilof Islands red king crab fishery to minimize the bycatch of PIBKC
in that fishery. On an annual basis, ADF&G also closes specific State
statistical areas where PIBKC are known to occur during the Bristol Bay
red king crab, snow crab, and Tanner crab fisheries to minimize PIBKC
bycatch in those fisheries.
In 1995, NMFS implemented Amendment 21a to the BSAI FMP to
establish a trawl gear closure in the PIHCZ, to protect blue king crab
(60 FR 4110, January 20, 1995). The PIHCZ was established to protect a
majority of the crab habitat in the Pribilof Islands area based on the
distribution and habitat of the blue king crab in the NMFS annual trawl
surveys and on observer data.
The BSAI FMP and implementing regulations at Sec. 679.21 require
that the incidental catch of PIBKC as a prohibited species must be
avoided while fishing for groundfish. When PIBKC is caught in
groundfish fisheries, it is known as bycatch and must be immediately
returned to sea with a minimum of injury. In addition, regulations at
Sec. 679.7 prohibit PIBKC bycatch in groundfish fisheries from being
sold or kept for personal use.
On September 23, 2002, the Secretary of Commerce notified the
Council that the PIBKC stock biomass was below its minimum stock size
threshold and was overfished. Rebuilding overfished stocks is required
by section 304 the Magnuson-Stevens Act. A rebuilding plan was
implemented in 2004 that included a provision that prohibited directed
fishing on PIBKC until the stock was rebuilt (69 FR 17651, April 5,
[[Page 49489]]
2004). This Federal regulatory prohibition mirrored the directed
fishing closure already established by ADF&G in 1999. The rebuilding
plan estimated that the stock had a 50 percent probability to be
rebuilt within 10 years, by 2014, in compliance with section
304(e)(4)(A)(ii) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act.
Due to chronic low abundance, this stock remains overfished despite
the measures to minimize catch of blue king crab. The cause of the
continued low PIBKC stock abundance and failure to recover is not well
understood. Information included in the EA (see ADDRESSES) and Stock
Assessment and Fishery Evaluation (SAFE) reports suggest that
environmental conditions such as changing ocean currents, changing
water temperatures, and changing spatial distributions among king crab
stocks may contribute to the failure of this stock to recover. While
there are no apparent physical barriers to adult dispersal, crab larval
dispersal may be affected by local oceanography, which may in turn
affect recruitment of the PIBKC stock (see Table 4-4 of the EA).
Environmental conditions may also play a role in female crab
reproduction and growth; however this relationship is poorly understood
(Section 5 of the EA).
NMFS notified the Council on September 29, 2009, that the current
rebuilding plan for PIBKC was not achieving adequate progress to
rebuild the stock by 2014. To comply with section 304(e)(7) of the
Magnuson-Stevens Act, the Council recommended further conservation and
management measures in Amendment 103 to reduce bycatch in groundfish
fisheries: the primary source of fishing mortality for PIBKC. The
Council also recommended Amendment 43 to revise to the rebuilding plan
in the Crab FMP.
Proposed Amendment 103 to the BSAI FMP
Amendment 103 to the BSAI FMP, and the proposed implementing
regulations, would close year-round the PIHCZ to directed fishing for
Pacific cod with pot gear to minimize bycatch of PIBKC in groundfish
fisheries and prevent overfishing. The term ``directed fishing'' is
defined in the groundfish fisheries regulation at Sec. 679.2.
Federal fisheries management is required to be consistent with the
ten National Standards in the Magnuson-Stevens Act (16 U.S.C. 1851).
Amendment 103 addresses primarily two national standards under the
Magnuson-Stevens Act. The first standard is National Standard 1, which
requires that ``Conservation and management measures shall prevent
overfishing while achieving, on a continuing basis, the optimum yield
from each fishery for the U.S. fishing industry.'' The second standard
is National Standard 9, which requires that ``Conservation and
management measures shall, to the extent practicable, (a) minimize
bycatch and (b) to the extent bycatch cannot be avoided, minimize the
mortality of such bycatch.''
Amendment 103 would be consistent with National Standard 1 by
preventing overfishing of PIBKC while allowing the Pacific cod pot
allocation to be fully harvested in the BSAI. Bycatch of PIBKC in all
groundfish fisheries is below the PIBKC overfishing level; however,
groundfish fisheries catch of PIBKC has the potential to exceed the
annual PIBKC overfishing level. Therefore, the Council recommended
additional conservation and management measures to further minimize
bycatch and prevent overfishing with the goal to rebuild PIBKC.
Amendment 103 would also be consistent with National Standard 9 by
minimizing bycatch to the extent practicable. The Council recommended
closing the PIHCZ to directed fishing for Pacific cod with pot gear
based primarily on the high observed rate of PIBKC bycatch in the PIHCZ
relative to areas outside of the PIHCZ, and the high observed rate of
PIBKC bycatch within the PIHCZ in the directed Pacific cod pot gear
fishery relative to other groundfish fisheries occurring within the
PIHCZ.
The RIR/IRFA prepared for this action indicates that under
Amendment 103 the catch of Pacific cod by pot gear would not be
reduced, and the Pacific cod pot fisheries would be able to fully
harvest their annual allocation. The RIR/IRFA suggests that fairly high
Pacific cod catch by vessels using pot gear that occurs within the
PIHCZ could be effectively harvested outside of the boundary of the
PIHCZ with limited potential for additional costs on the affected
fishery participants. (See Section 1.4.2 of the RIR/IRFA for additional
detail).
Pot gear has the highest observed bycatch rates of PIBKC across all
gear types from 2005 to 2011. The 2005 through 2011 reference period
uses the best available information on PIBKC bycatch rates by
groundfish fisheries. The average PIBKC bycatch rate observed for pot
gear for this time period in the entire PIHCZ was 0.052 crab per metric
ton. The areas located to the northeast and to the east of St. Paul
Island, within the PIHCZ, had the highest and second-highest PIBKC
bycatch rates in the BSAI, respectively. Nearly all of the observed
PIBKC bycatch was within the PIHCZ. Thus a closure of the PIHCZ to pot
gear would close the area with the highest observed bycatch rate of
PIBKC. The next highest PIBKC bycatch rates were observed in the hook-
and-line Pacific cod fishery in the PIHCZ with an average rate of
0.0176 crab per metric ton from 2005 to 2011, a rate of roughly one-
third of that observed in the Pacific cod pot fishery.
Trawl gear is currently prohibited within the PIHCZ and does not
contribute to PIBKC bycatch within the PIHCZ. Hook-and-line and pot
fisheries within the PIHCZ for groundfish species other than Pacific
cod do not comprise more than a minimal amount of PIBKC bycatch.
Extending the closure in the PIHCZ beyond the trawl and Pacific cod pot
gear fisheries was not practicable based on the much lower observed
rate of PIBKC bycatch in the PIHCZ for those groundfish fisheries and
the minimal impact of those additional closures on PIBKC stock
abundance. See Section 4.5.5 of the EA for additional detail.
The Council considered a range of alternative closure areas to
reduce the bycatch of PIBKC. Ultimately, the Council recommended
closing the PIHCZ to directed fishing for Pacific cod with pot gear
based on: 1) the high rate of PIBKC bycatch in the PIHCZ relative to
other areas outside of the PIHCZ; 2) the high concentration of PIBKC in
the PIHCZ; 3) the occurrence of known PIBKC habitat within the PIHCZ;
4) the high rate of PIBKC bycatch in the Pacific cod pot fishery
relative to other groundfish fisheries; and 5) the limited impact the
Pacific cod pot gear closure in the PIHCZ would have on the Pacific cod
pot fishery relative to other closures in other groundfish fisheries.
See Section 2.9 of the EA for additional detail of the alternatives
considered and not selected.
[[Page 49490]]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TP21AU14.004
Proposed Amendment 43 to the Crab FMP
The current rebuilding plan in the Crab FMP for PIBKC describes
measures taken to reduce mortality to PIBKC to support rebuilding the
stock, including actions taken under the BSAI FMP. With the
implementation of Amendment 103 to the BSAI FMP, all fishery management
measures practicable have been taken to greatly eliminate PIBKC catch
and protect PIBKC habitat. These measures are intended to ensure that
the rebuilding time period is as short as possible in compliance with
section 304(e)(4)(A) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Amendment 43 to the
Crab FMP would amend the current rebuilding plan and incorporate the
new information available on the rebuilding time period that takes into
account the status and biology of PIBKC and environmental conditions.
Based on the best available information on the biology of the stock
and environmental conditions, NMFS estimates that the time period to
rebuild the stock will exceed 10 years, as allowed under section
304(e)(4)(A)(ii) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act (see Section 4.5.2 of the
EA for more information). The causes of the stock decline are thought
to be predominantly due to environmental changes that inhibit blue king
crab reproduction. For this stock to rebuild, the stock would likely
require multiple years of above average recruitment and/or a change in
environmental conditions to increase larval productivity around the
Pribilof Islands. It is not possible to predict future recruitment
success; however, changes in stock abundance are assessed annually in
the SAFE report.
NMFS developed a draft stock assessment model that predicted that
the PIBKC stock may be rebuilt in 50 years. However, NMFS does not have
confidence in these model results. The low numbers of PIBKC encountered
in biomass surveys and the poor ability to predict recruitment results
in high imprecision in the projected biomass. The model imprecision,
coupled with poorly understood environmental influences on the blue
king crab stock, did not lead to high confidence in biomass projections
during the 50-year period. As a result, NMFS is unable to predict
whether the PIBKC stock can be rebuilt in the foreseeable future.
In addition, the draft model results showed no statistically
significant difference in the rebuilding timeframe under any of the
bycatch reduction scenarios. While NMFS could not determine whether
reducing bycatch would alter rebuilding timeframes using the stock
assessment model, NMFS and the Council are proposing Amendment 103 and
the proposed rule to further minimize bycatch.
Public Comments
NMFS is soliciting public comments on the proposed FMP amendments
through October 20, 2014. A proposed rule that would implement
Amendment 103 to the BSAI FMP will be published in the Federal Register
for public comment at a later date, following NMFS' evaluation pursuant
to the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Public comments on the proposed rule must
be received by the end of the comment period on Amendment 103 to the
BSAI FMP in order to be considered in the approval/disapproval decision
on the amendment. All comments received on the amendments by the end of
the comment period, whether specifically directed to the amendments or
to the proposed rule for Amendment 103, will be considered in the
approval/disapproval decision. Comments received after that date will
not be considered in the approval/disapproval decision on the
amendments. To be considered, comments must be received--not just
postmarked or otherwise transmitted--by 1700 hours, A.l.t., on the last
day of the comment period (See DATES and ADDRESSES).
Authority: 16 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.
Dated: August 18, 2014.
Emily H. Menashes,
Acting Director, Office of Sustainable Fisheries, National Marine
Fisheries Service.
[FR Doc. 2014-19839 Filed 8-20-14; 8:45 am]
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