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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 36 / Thursday, February 25, 2021 / Rules and Regulations
apportionments, and prohibited species catch allowances for the groundfish fishery of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands management area BSAI. This action is necessary to establish harvest limits for groundfish during the remainder of the 2021 and the start of the 2022 fishing years and to accomplish the goals and objectives of the Fishery Management Plan for Groundfish of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area FMP. The 2021 harvest specifications supersede those previously set in the final 2020 and 2021 harvest specifications, and the 2022 harvest specifications will be superseded in early 2022 when the final 2022 and 2023 harvest specifications are published. The intended effect of this action is to conserve and manage the groundfish resources in the BSAI in accordance with the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act Magnuson-Stevens Act.
DATES: Harvest specifications and closures are effective from 1200 hours, Alaska local time A.l.t., February 25, 2021, through 2400 hours, A.l.t., December 31, 2022.
ADDRESSES: Electronic copies of the Alaska Groundfish Harvest Specifications Final Environmental Impact Statement EIS, Record of Decision ROD, and the annual Supplementary Information Reports SIRs to the Final EIS prepared for this action are available from https
www.fisheries.noaa.gov/region/alaska.
The 2020 Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation SAFE report for the groundfish resources of the BSAI, dated November 2020, as well as the SAFE
reports for previous years, are available from the North Pacific Fishery Management Council Council at 1007
West 3rd Ave., Suite 400, Anchorage, AK 99501, phone 9072712809, or from the Councils website at https
www.npfmc.org/.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Steve Whitney, 9075867228.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Federal regulations at 50 CFR part 679
implement the FMP and govern the groundfish fisheries in the BSAI. The Council prepared the FMP, and NMFS
approved it, under the MagnusonStevens Act. General regulations governing U.S. fisheries also appear at 50 CFR part 600.
The FMP and its implementing regulations require NMFS, after consultation with the Council, to specify annually the total allowable catch TAC for each target species category. The sum of all TAC for all groundfish species in the BSAI must be
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within the optimum yield OY range of 1.4 million to 2.0 million metric tons mt see 679.20a1iA. This final rule specifies the sum of the TAC at 2.0
million mt for both 2021 and 2022.
NMFS also must specify apportionments of TAC; prohibited species catch PSC allowances and prohibited species quota PSQ reserves established by 679.21; seasonal allowances of pollock, Pacific cod, and Atka mackerel TAC; American Fisheries Act allocations; Amendment 80
allocations; Community Development Quota CDQ reserve amounts established by 679.20b1ii; and acceptable biological catch ABC
surpluses and reserves for CDQ groups and the Amendment 80 cooperative for flathead sole, rock sole, and yellowfin sole. The final harvest specifications set forth in Tables 1 through 22 of this action satisfy these requirements.
Section 679.20c3i further requires that NMFS consider public comment on the proposed harvest specifications and, after consultation with the Council, publish final harvest specifications in the Federal Register. The proposed 2021 and 2022 harvest specifications for the groundfish fishery of the BSAI were published in the Federal Register on December 3, 2020 85 FR 78096.
Comments were invited and accepted through January 4, 2021. As discussed in the Response to Comments section below, NMFS received no comments during the public comment period for the proposed BSAI groundfish harvest specifications.
NMFS consulted with the Council on the final 2021 and 2022 harvest specifications during the December 2020 Council meeting. After considering public comments, as well as biological and socioeconomic data that were available at the Councils December meeting, NMFS implements in this final rule the final 2021 and 2022 harvest specifications as recommended by the Council.
ABC and TAC Harvest Specifications The final ABC amounts for Alaska groundfish are based on the best available biological information, including projected biomass trends, information on assumed distribution of stock biomass, and revised technical methods used to calculate stock biomass. In general, the development of ABCs and overfishing levels OFLs involves sophisticated statistical analyses of fish populations. The FMP
specifies a series of six tiers to define OFL and ABC amounts based on the level of reliable information available to fishery scientists. Tier 1 represents the highest level of information quality
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available, while Tier 6 represents the lowest.
In December 2020, the Council, its Scientific and Statistical Committee SSC, and its Advisory Panel AP
reviewed current biological and harvest information about the condition of the BSAI groundfish stocks. The Councils BSAI Groundfish Plan Team Plan Team compiled and presented this information in the 2020 SAFE report for the BSAI groundfish fisheries, dated November 2020 see ADDRESSES. The SAFE report contains a review of the latest scientific analyses and estimates of each species biomass and other biological parameters, as well as summaries of the available information on the BSAI ecosystem and the economic condition of groundfish fisheries off Alaska. NMFS notified the public of the comment period for these harvest specificationsand of the publication of the 2020 SAFE report in the notice of proposed harvest specifications. From the data and analyses in the SAFE report, the Plan Team recommended an OFL and ABC
for each species or species group at the November 2020 Plan Team meeting.
In December 2020, the SSC, AP, and Council reviewed the Plan Teams recommendations. The final TAC
recommendations were based on the ABCs, and were adjusted for other biological and socioeconomic considerations, including maintaining the sum of all the TACs within the required OY range of 1.4 million to 2.0
million mt. As required by annual catch limit rules for all fisheries 74 FR 3178, January 16, 2009, none of the Councils recommended 2021 or 2022 TACs exceed the final 2021 or 2022 ABCs for any species or species group. NMFS
finds that the Councils recommended OFLs, ABCs, and TACs are consistent with the preferred harvest strategy outlined in the FMP and the biological condition of groundfish stocks as described in the 2020 SAFE report that was approved by the Council. Therefore, this final rule provides notice that the Secretary of Commerce approves the final 2021 and 2022 harvest specifications as recommended by the Council.
The 2021 harvest specifications set in this final action will supersede the 2021
harvest specifications previously set in the final 2020 and 2021 harvest specifications 85 FR 13553, March 9, 2020. The 2022 harvest specifications herein will be superseded in early 2022
when the final 2022 and 2023 harvest specifications are published. Pursuant to this final action, the 2021 harvest specifications therefore will apply for the remainder of the current year 2021,
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