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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 138 / Thursday, July 22, 2021 / Rules and Regulations On May 26, 2021 86 FR 28323, we published a proposed rule in the Federal Register seeking public comment on setting new 2021 and projected specifications for fishing year 2022 butterfish and Illex squid, while maintaining the current longfin squid and Atlantic mackerel specifications for 2021 and projected for 20222023, in addition to adjusting the dealer reporting requirement and adjusts the closure threshold for the Illex squid fishery to avoid overages. The proposed rule for this action included additional background on specifications and the details of how the Council derived its recommended specifications for Atlantic mackerel, Illex squid, longfin squid, and butterfish. Those details are not repeated here. For additional information, please refer to the proposed rule for this action.
Following the publication of the proposed rule, the Council requested that we increase the Illex squid 2021
2022 ABC from 30,000 mt ABC to 33,000 mt, as recommended by the SSC.
At its May 2021 meeting, the SSC
recommended this revised ABC based on updated information, including patterns that suggest an increase in abundance, low levels of exploitation, and catches that have been constrained by existing ABCs for the last 4 years.
The SSC is confident that the Illex stock is at a high level of abundance and experiencing a low exploitation rate.
This increase was within the range of alternatives considered and analyzed in the EA for this action, and the public had the opportunity to comment on this increase at the May 2021 Monitoring Committee meeting, the May 2021 SSC
meeting, and the June 2021 Council meeting.

specifications once the final report and results are available.

TABLE 1ATLANTIC MACKEREL FINAL
2021 AND PROJECTED 2022 SPECIFICATIONS
Specification Overfishing Limit OFL
ABC
Canadian Deduction
U.S. ABC
Recreational Allocation
Commerical Allocation
Management Uncertainty Buffer 3 percent
Commercial Annual Catch Target
DAH

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537
17,377
17,312

This action maintains the 2020
longfin squid ABC of 23,400 mt for 20212022. The background for this ABC is discussed in the proposed rule to implement the 20182020 squid and butterfish specifications 82 FR 58583;
December 13, 2017 and is not repeated here. The IOY, DAH, and domestic annual processing DAP are calculated by deducting an estimated discard rate 2.0 percent from the ABC Table 2.
This action also maintains the existing allocation of longfin squid DAH among trimesters according to percentages specified in the FMP Table 3. The Council will review these specifications during its annual specifications process following annual data updates each spring, and may change its recommendation for 2022 if new information is available.

TABLE 4BUTTERFISH FINAL 2021
AND PROJECTED 2022 SPECIFICATIONS IN METRIC TONS
Specification OFL
ABC
ACT
Assumed discards
Total discards
Butterfish cap in longfin fishery
DAH

Metric tons
OFL
ABC
IOY
DAH/DAP

2021

2022

22,053
11,993
11,393
637
5,043

24, 341
17,854
16,961
637
5,466

3,884
6,350

3,884
11,495

TABLE 52021 TRIMESTER ALLOCATION OF BUTTERFISH MORTALITY
CAP ON THE LONGFIN SQUID FISHERY
Trimester
TABLE 2LONGFIN SQUID FINAL 2021
AND PROJECTED 2022 SPECIFICATIONS
Specification
The original 2021 Atlantic mackerel ABC recommended by the SSC for Framework 13 84 FR 58053; October 30, 2019 was based on projections that recognized a strong 2015 year class in the assessment results. At its July 2020
meeting, the SSC considered preliminary results from the 2019
Canadian Atlantic mackerel assessment, which indicated lower than expected recruitment. As a result, the SSC
recommended maintaining the more conservative 2020 ABC for 2021. This action maintains the 2020 mackerel specifications outlined in Table 1 for 2021. These specifications also maintain the 129-mt river herring and shad catch cap. There was an Atlantic mackerel management track assessment June 2021
that will inform future ABC

15:56 Jul 21, 2021

NA
29,184
10,000
19,184
1,270
17,914

20212022 Longfin Squid Specifications
20212022 Atlantic Mackerel Specifications
VerDate Sep<11>2014

20212022

reduction from 2020. The 2020
butterfish management track assessment found butterfish to be not overfished with no overfishing occurring in 2019, but if the full ABC had been caught, projections suggest overfishing would have occurred and the stock would have become overfished. While butterfish recruitment is variable, it has been declining since 1999 with historically low recruitment in recent years. The 20212022 butterfish specifications use the Councils risk policy at the time and the SSCs assignment of a 100-percent coefficient of variation to the projected OFL. These specifications maintain the existing butterfish mortality cap in the longfin squid fishery of 3,884 mt and the existing allocation of the butterfish mortality cap among longfin squid trimesters Table 5.

Percent
Metric tons
I JanApr
II MayAug
III SepDec

43
17
40

1,670
660
1,554

Total

100

3,844

Unknown.
23,400.
22,932.
22,932.

20212022 Illex Squid Specifications Consistent with the Councils June 2021 recommendation, NMFS adjusts TABLE 3LONGFIN QUOTA TRIMESTER the 2021 Illex squid ABC from 30,000
ALLOCATIONS FINAL 2021 AND PROmt to 33,000 mt. Based on the SSCs recommendation, the Council JECTED 2022 SPECIFICATIONS
recommended that the ABC be reduced by the discard rate of 4.61 percent, a Metric Trimester Percent change from the status quo discard rate tons of 4.52 percent, due to updated data that I JanApr
43
9,861 will be used in the 2022 Illex Squid II MayAug
17
3,898 Research Track Assessment. Using the III SepDec
40
9,173
updated discard rate results in a 2021
2022 IOY, DAH, and DAP of 31,478 mt 20212022 Butterfish Specifications Table 6. The Council will review this This action sets the 20212022
decision during its annual specifications butterfish specifications as outlined in process following annual data updates Table 4, which are a 72-percent each spring, and may change its
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