Fisheries of the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and South Atlantic; Snapper-Grouper Fishery Off the Southern Atlantic States; Amendment 20A

Riepilogo

NMFS announces that the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) has submitted Amendment 20A to the Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for the Snapper-Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic Region (Amendment 20A) for review, approval, and implementation by NMFS. Amendment 20A proposes actions for the wreckfish individual transferable quota (ITQ) program, including actions to define and revert inactive wreckfish quota shares, redistribute reverted quota shares to remaining shareholders, establish a cap on the number of wreckfish quota shares a single entity may own, and establish an appeals process for redistribution of reverted wreckfish quota shares. The actions contained in Amendment 20A are intended to help achieve the optimum yield (OY) from the wreckfish commercial sector in accordance with the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act).