Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Application for an Exempted Fishing Permit

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This notice announces the receipt of an application and the public comment period for an exempted fishing permit (EFP) from Mr. John Gauvin of Gauvin and Associates, LLC. If granted, this permit would allow the applicant to continue the development and testing of a salmon excluder device for the Bering Sea pollock trawl fishery. The objective of the EFP application is to identify upgraded excluder design(s) and specific rigging configurations most likely to produce the greatest relative reduction in Chinook salmon bycatch rates on vessels from different horsepower and size classes of the Bering Sea pollock fishery. The most effective current salmon excluder designs and rigging configurations would be refined and tested systematically under conditions that approximate as closely as possible actual commercial fishing practices in that fishery. Testing will be conducted in 2018, 2019, and 2020, with results from each year guiding the device design for each vessel size class to be tested the subsequent year during the period of this EFP. This experiment has the potential to promote the objectives of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.