National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration November 24, 2017 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) will hold meetings of its Citizen Science Advisory Panel Volunteers; Communication/Outreach/Education; and Data Management Action Teams via webinar.

The Caribbean Fishery Management Council will hold its 161st meeting in December to discuss the items contained in the agenda in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION.

Through this final rule, NMFS announces approval of a regulatory amendment to the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan (FMP) to reallocate quota shares (QS) of widow rockfish in the Shorebased Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) Program. In January 2011, NMFS implemented the trawl rationalization program, which includes an IFQ Program for limited entry (LE) trawl participants. At the time of implementation, the widow rockfish stock was overfished and QS were allocated to QS permit holders in the Shorebased IFQ Program (the Program) only to cover widow rockfish bycatch that may be associated with harvest of target species. Now that widow rockfish has been rebuilt, this action reallocates QS to initial recipients to reestablish a target widow rockfish fishery. The reallocation is based on a target species formula that more closely represents the fishing history of permit holders when widow rockfish was a targeted species. This final rule also removes the daily vessel limit for widow rockfish, allows the trading of widow rockfish QS, and sets a deadline for divestiture of excess QS should the reallocation of widow rockfish cause any QS permit holder to exceed an accumulation limit.

NMFS and the Northeast Regional Stock Assessment Workshop (SAW) will convene the 64th SAW Stock Assessment Review Committee for the purpose of reviewing the stock assessment of Atlantic mackerel. The Northeast Regional SAW is a formal scientific peer-review process for evaluating and presenting stock assessment results to managers for fish stocks in the offshore U.S. waters of the northwest Atlantic. Assessments are prepared by SAW working groups and reviewed by an independent panel of stock assessment experts called the Stock Assessment Review Committee, or SARC. The public is invited to attend the presentations and discussions between the review panel and the scientists who have participated in the stock assessment process.