Fisheries of the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and South Atlantic; Coral and Coral Reefs off the Southern Atlantic States; Exempted Fishing Permit

Résumé

NMFS announces the receipt of an application for an exempted fishing permit (EFP) from Dr. Louis Daniel, on behalf of the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries. If granted, the EFP would authorize a maximum of 12 commercial fishing vessels to harvest and land South Atlantic snapper- grouper species that are either currently prohibited to be harvested in general by the South Atlantic Snapper-Grouper Fishery Management Plan (FMP) (speckled hind and warsaw grouper) or are prohibited to be harvested beyond a depth of 240 ft (73.2 m) (blueline tilefish, misty grouper, queen snapper, silk snapper, snowy grouper, and yellowedge grouper). Authorized vessels would be eligible to harvest these species in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) off North Carolina, specifically, the waters north of Cape Hatteras to the North Carolina/Virginia border. The purpose of this EFP would be to provide basic life history information for any fish harvested, particularly blueline tilefish. An additional purpose of the EFP would be to determine the distribution of speckled hind and warsaw grouper in the study area to determine if these species are bycatch in the commercial blueline tilefish component of t