[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

[[Page 25296]]

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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