Fisheries Off West Coast States and in the Western Pacific; Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery; Spiny Dogfish; Open Access; Routine Management Measure; Closure Authority

Riepilogo

This action extends an emergency rule, now in effect, that establishes routine management measure authority, under the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan (Pacific Coast Groundfish FMP), to reduce trip limits to incidental levels in the open access fishery for groundfish before the sector has taken its full target groundfish species' allocations, to minimize impacts on overfished species. The mechanism established by this action is necessary to quickly restrict the directed open access groundfish fishery if NMFS estimates that the incidental catch of an overfished species is too high.