Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Pacific Cod Allocations in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area

Zusammenfassung

NMFS issues a final rule to implement Amendment 85 to the Fishery Management Plan for Groundfish of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area (FMP) as partially approved by NMFS, and to implement recent changes to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act). This final rule modifies the current allocations of Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands management area (BSAI) Pacific cod total allowable catch (TAC) among various harvest sectors and seasonal apportionments thereof, establishes a hierarchy for reallocating projected unharvested amounts of Pacific cod from certain sectors to other sectors, revises catcher/processor (CP) sector definitions, modifies the management of Pacific cod incidental catch that occurs in other groundfish fisheries, eliminates the Pacific cod nonspecified reserve, subdivides the annual prohibited species catch (PSC) limits currently apportioned to the Pacific cod hook-and-line gear fisheries between the catcher vessel (CV) and CP sectors, and modifies the sideboard restrictions for American Fisheries Act (AFA) CP vessels. In addition, this final rule increases the percentage of the BSAI Pacific cod TAC apportio