[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 86 (Wednesday, May 4, 2011)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 25295-25297]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-10798]
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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
50 CFR Part 679
RIN 0648-XA209
Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Bering Sea
and Aleutian Islands King and Tanner Crabs
AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and
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 submitted
Amendments 38 and 39 to the Fishery Management Plan for Bering Sea/
Aleutian Islands King and Tanner Crabs (FMP) to NMFS for review. If
approved, Amendment 38 would establish a mechanism in the FMP to
specify annual catch limits and accountability measures for each crab
stock. This action is necessary to account for uncertainty in the
overfishing limit and prevent overfishing. If approved, Amendment 39
would modify the snow crab rebuilding plan to define the stock as
rebuilt the first year the stock biomass is above the level necessary
to produce maximum sustainable yield. Amendments 38 and 39 are intended
to promote the goals and objectives of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery
Conservation and Management Act, the FMP, and other applicable laws.
DATES: Written comments on the amendment must be received on or before
5 p.m., Alaska local time, on July 5, 2011.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by RIN 0648-XA209, by
any one of the following methods:
Electronic Submissions: Submit all electronic public
comments via the Federal eRulemaking Portal http://www.regulations.gov.
Fax: (907) 586-7557, Attn: Ellen Sebastian
Mail: P.O. Box 21668, Juneau, AK 99802.
Hand delivery to the Federal Building: 709 West 9th
Street, Room 420A, Juneau, AK.
Instructions: All comments received are a part of the public record
and will generally be posted to http://www.regulations.gov without
change. All Personal Identifying Information (for example, name,
address) voluntarily submitted by the commenter may be publicly
accessible. Do not submit Confidential Business Information or
otherwise sensitive or protected information.
NMFS will accept anonymous comments (enter N/A in the required
fields, if you wish to remain anonymous). You may submit attachments to
electronic comments in Microsoft Word, Excel, WordPerfect, or Adobe PDF
file formats only.
Electronic copies of Amendments 38 and 39 and the Environmental
Assessment prepared for this action may be obtained from the Federal
eRulemaking Portal http://www.regulations.gov.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Gretchen Harrington, 907-586-7228.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation
and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act) requires that each regional
fishery management council submit any fishery management plan or
fishery management plan 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 a fishery management plan amendment, immediately publish a
notice in the Federal Register announcing that the amendment is
available for public review and comment.
This notice announces that proposed Amendments 38 and 39 to the
Fishery Management Plan for Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands King and Tanner
Crabs (FMP) are available for public review and comment. The crab
fisheries in the exclusive economic zone of the Bering Sea and Aleutian
Islands are managed under the FMP. The FMP was prepared by the North
Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) under the authority of the
Magnuson-Stevens Act, 16 U.S.C. 1801 et seq. The FMP establishes a
cooperative management regime that defers many aspects of crab
fisheries management to the State of Alaska (State) with Federal
oversight. State regulations are subject to the provisions of the FMP,
and must be consistent with the Magnuson-Stevens Act and other
applicable Federal laws.
The provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, as amended in 2007,
establish, either expressly or by logical extension, five basic
requirements that relate to and require amendment of the FMP. The
Guidelines for National Standard 1 of the Magnuson-Stevens Act (50 CFR
600.310; NS 1 Guidelines) provide guidance to regional fishery
management councils about how to satisfy the obligations of the
Magnuson-Stevens Act relative to the prevention of overfishing,
achievement of optimum yield, and establishment of annual catch limits.
The following is a summary of these five requirements.
(1) The FMP must provide for the specification of annual catch
limits (ACLs) that will prevent overfishing.
(2) The FMP must establish an acceptable biological catch (ABC)
control rule that accounts for relevant sources of scientific
uncertainty.
(3) The Council's Scientific and Statistical Committee must provide
the Council with scientific advice on the ABC control rule and periodic
recommendations for specifying the ABC for each fishery.
(4) The FMP must establish accountability measures that prevent
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exceeding the ACLs and to correct overages of the ACL if they do occur.
(5) The FMP must describe the maximum sustainable yield and assess
and specify the optimum yield for the fishery.
The Council unanimously recommended Amendment 38 to explicitly
address these five basic requirements while maintaining the FMP's
cooperative management regime that relies on State expertise in
collecting and analyzing scientific data on crab and in establishing
the total allowable catches (TACs). In addition, by recommending this
approach, the Council acknowledges that the precautionary approach that
is currently employed by the State in setting TAC further reduces the
risk of realizing overfishing by incorporating variable scientific
information that cannot be quantified in a control rule.
Annual Catch Limits and Acceptable Biological Catch
Amendment 38 would establish ABC control rules in the FMP and set
the ACL equal to the ABC. Annually, the ABC control rule would be used
to set the maximum ABC for each crab stock below the overfishing level
(OFL) set for that stock. This mechanism would ensure that, at the
maximum ABC, the probability of overfishing is less than 50 percent.
The ABC control rules would be incorporated into the existing five-
tier system used to set the OFLs. Annually, the Scientific and
Statistical Committee assigns each crab stock to one of five tiers
based on an evaluation of the reliable information available for that
stock. No crab stocks have sufficient information to be in Tiers 1 or
2. Tier 3 stocks have sufficient information for the stock assessment
model to estimate the biomass level and fishing rate necessary to
achieve maximum sustainable yield. Tier 4 stocks have a stock
assessment model that estimates biomass using the historical
performance of the fishery and information from other stocks as
necessary to estimate biological parameters. Tier 5 stocks have no
reliable estimates of biomass and only historical catch data is
available.
For crab stocks in Tiers 1 through 4, the ABC control rule would
calculate a buffer below the OFL using a 49 percent probability that
the ABC exceeds the true, but unknown, OFL (noted as P*=0.49) and a
probability distribution for the OFL. Scientific uncertainty would be
incorporated into the ABC-setting process though the annual
specification of the probability distribution for the OFL, which
accounts for scientific uncertainty in the estimate of OFL and any
other specified scientific uncertainty. The resulting ABC, and
corresponding ACL, would be a total catch limit comprised of three
catch components: (1) Non-directed fishery discard losses; (2) directed
fishery discard losses; and (3) directed fishery retained catch. A
discussion of this approach is provided in the Environmental Assessment
(see ADDRESSES).
To better understand and incorporate scientific uncertainty,
Amendment 38 would direct the Crab Plan Team and the Scientific and
Statistical Committee to annually evaluate and make recommendations on
(1) The specification of the probability distribution of the OFL, (2)
the methods to appropriately quantify uncertainty in the OFL estimate
for the ABC control rule, and (3) the factors influencing scientific
uncertainty that the State would account for on an annual basis in TAC-
setting. The end result would be to incorporate additional scientific
uncertainty into the ABC control rule where possible while continuing
to consider uncertainty in the TAC-setting process.
In developing this approach, the Council recognized that some
scientific uncertainty relative to crab stock conditions is not
applicable to the OFL setting process and is better addressed through
the State TAC-setting process. This approach relies on the State to
incorporate additional buffering to account for uncertainty through the
annual TAC specification process and recognizes the State's role and
expertise in crab research and management under the FMP. Additional
uncertainty includes (1) management uncertainty (i.e., uncertainty in
the ability of managers to constrain catch so the ACL is not exceeded
and uncertainty in quantifying the true catch amount) and (2)
scientific uncertainty identified and not already accounted for in the
ABC. The State currently considers many factors that influence
estimates of uncertainty in TAC-setting. The State also has the
flexibility to use the expertise of its managers and biologists to be
more conservative than existing harvest strategies as necessary to
prevent overfishing and meet State management goals and Federal
requirements. A discussion of the State's TAC-setting process is
provided in the Environmental Assessment (see ADDRESSES).
For crab stocks in Tier 5, the ABC control rule would set the
maximum ABC at 10 percent below the OFL. No annual consideration of
uncertainty is required for Tier 5 stocks because scientific
uncertainty in the OFL estimate is incorporated in the size of the
buffer. The State would consider additional scientific uncertainty and
management uncertainty in the TAC-setting process. For Tier 5 stocks
where only retained catch information is available, the OFL and ABC
would be set for the retained catch portion only. For Tier 5 stocks
where information on bycatch mortality is available, the OFL and ABC
calculations could include discard losses, at which point the OFL and
ABC would be applied to the retained catch plus the discard losses from
directed and non-directed fisheries.
Scientific and Statistical Committee
The Council's Scientific and Statistical Committee would annually
establish the ABC for each crab stock through the following process.
First, the stock assessment author would prepare the stock assessment
and recommend a proposed OFL and an ABC (at or less than the maximum
ABC). Next, the Crab Plan Team would review the stock assessment and
make recommendations on the OFL and ABC. The Scientific and Statistical
Committee would then review the stock assessment documents,
recommendations from the Crab Plan Team, and methods for addressing
scientific uncertainty, and set the final OFL and ABC for each stock.
The Scientific and Statistical Committee may set an ABC lower than the
maximum ABC calculated using the ABC control rule, but it must provide
an explanation for why a lower ABC was set.
Accountability Measures
Amendment 38 would establish accountability measures to comply with
the Magnuson-Stevens Act requirement that FMPs include accountability
measures to prevent ACLs from being exceeded and to correct overages of
the ACL if they do occur.
Accountability measures to prevent TACs from being exceeded, and to
account for and minimize crab bycatch, are used in crab fishery
management and would continue to be used to prevent ACLs from being
exceeded. These accountability measures include: individual fishing
quotas and the measures implemented under the Crab Rationalization
Program to ensure that individual fishing quotas are not exceeded,
measures to minimize crab bycatch in directed crab fisheries, and
monitoring and catch accounting measures. These measures have been
effective at preventing the TAC from being exceeded since the start of
the Crab Rationalization Program in 2005.
[[Page 25297]]
Accountability measures in the ABC-setting process would include
downward adjustments to the ABC in the fishing season after an ACL has
been exceeded. If catch exceeds the ACL, a lower maximum ABC in the
subsequent season would result because maximum ABC varies directly with
biomass, except for Tier 5 stocks. For Tier 5 stocks, the information
used to establish the ABC is insufficient to reliably estimate
abundance or discern the existence or extent of biological consequences
caused by exceeding the ACL. Consequently, the subsequent fishing
season's maximum ABC would not automatically decrease. However, when
the ACL for a Tier 5 stock has been exceeded, the Scientific and
Statistical Committee may choose to recommend a decrease in the ABC for
the subsequent fishing season as an accountability measure.
Given that the State sets the TAC, Amendment 38 also includes
accountability measures for the State to exercise in the annual TAC-
setting process. First, Amendment 38 would require that the State
establish the annual TAC for each crab stock at a level sufficiently
below the ACL so that the sum of the total catch (including all bycatch
mortality and any uncertainty in bycatch estimates) and the State's
assessment of additional uncertainty in the OFL estimate will not
exceed the ACL. At the end of the fishing year, the total catch would
be calculated and compared to the ACL.
Second, if an ACL is exceeded, the FMP would require that the State
implement accountability measures to account for any biological
consequences to the stock resulting from the overage through a downward
adjustment to the TAC for that species in the following fishing season.
Note that this TAC adjustment is in additional to the downward
adjustment to the ABC in the ABC-setting process discussed previously.
This accountability measure would be under the FMP's category 2, which
means that the State has the discretion under the FMP to determine the
most appropriate method to account for any catch above the ACL in
setting the TAC for the subsequent fishing season.
The Council recognized that these accountability measures place the
burden of accountability only on the directed crab fishery. Measures to
minimize crab bycatch in the groundfish fisheries currently include
prohibited species catch limits and area closures. The Council has
initiated a comprehensive analysis of crab bycatch in the Bering Sea
and Aleutian Islands groundfish fisheries to assess these existing crab
protection measures and to determine whether changes or additional
measures are necessary to further limit crab bycatch in the groundfish
fisheries.
Optimum Yield
Amendment 38 would amend the FMP to establish an optimum yield
range of 0 to less that the OFL catch. For crab stocks, the OFL is the
annualized maximum sustainable yield (MSY) and is derived through the
annual assessment process, under the framework of the tier system.
Recognizing the relatively volatile reproductive potential of crab
stocks, the cooperative management structure of the FMP, and the past
practice of restricting or even prohibiting directed harvests of some
stocks out of ecological considerations, this optimum yield range is
intended to facilitate the achievement of the biological objectives and
economic and social objectives of the FMP under a variety of future
biological and ecological conditions. It enables the State to determine
the appropriate TAC levels below the OFL to prevent overfishing or
address other biological concerns that may affect the reproductive
potential of a stock but that are not reflected in the OFL itself. The
State establishes TACs at levels that maximize harvests, and associated
economic and social benefits, when biological and ecological conditions
warrant doing so.
Snow Crab Rebuilding Plan
Amendment 39 would modify the existing snow crab rebuilding plan to
define ``rebuilt'' as the first year that the estimated biomass is
above the level necessary to produce maximum sustainable yield, rather
than the second consecutive year as currently defined. The Scientific
and Statistical Committee recommended that a one year threshold is
appropriate for snow crab based on the approved stock assessment model.
An Environmental Assessment was prepared for Amendments 38 and 39
that describes the management background, the purpose and need for
action, the management alternatives, and the environmental, social, and
economic impacts of the alternatives (see ADDRESSES).
Public comments are being solicited on proposed Amendments 38 and
39 to the FMP. NMFS will consider all public comments received by the
end of the comment period in the approval/disapproval decision on
Amendments 38 and 39. To be considered, comments must be received, not
just postmarked or otherwise transmitted, by 5 p.m. Alaska local time
on the last day of the comment period (see DATES). Comments received
after that date will not be considered in the approval/disapproval
decision on the amendments.
Authority: 16 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.
Dated: April 28, 2011.
Samuel D. Rauch III,
Deputy Assistant Administrator for Regulatory Programs, National Marine
Fisheries Service.
[FR Doc. 2011-10798 Filed 5-3-11; 8:45 am]
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