Purpose and Need

As part of its annual call for proposals, the Council initiated a plan amendment to address six proposals to amend the BSAI FMP. The Council identified the rationale for the preferred actions under the amendment:

1. revise the federal permit requirements: 
2. the single species rule (whereby the catch of a species approaches its TAC) placed no limit on the amount of a species discarded after its retention is prohibited because its TAC has been fully harvested.  The amount of bycatch discard increased during the rapid increase in the domestic fleet; and the single species rule did not apply to foreign fishing. Bycatch would be treated as PSC when a species reached its TAC. Therefore, a foreign fishery could not retain or discard bycatch without accounting for it against each species= allocation which were by then being fully harvested by the joint venture and domestic fisheries;
3. an increased interest by the domestic fishery to target roe-bearing rock sole led to competition with the foreign fishery for the Aother flatfish@ TAC;
4. mirror an administrative procedure in the GOA FMP whereby annual specifications of PSC limits in BSAI could be set for BSAI groundfish.

Analysis

A 133-page EA/RIR/IRFA (dated May 18, 1988) analyzed four amendment proposals for the BSAI FMP (the four listed above) and:

Remove the 2 million mt upper limit to the optimum yield range. The Council chose the status quo for this proposal for which it produced a separate SEIS (53 FR 16319) (this was not adopted by the Council).

Regulation Summary

Amendment 12 required:

All vessels receiving groundfish harvested in the EEZ to hold a federal permit and comply with federal reporting requirements;

• established PSC limit framework for groundfish species in the joint venture and foreign fisheries;
• established rock sole as a target species separate from the Aother flatfish@ category;
• removed the July 1 deadline for resource assessment document.

Results

The BSAI rock sole fishery has developed into a nearly 135,000 mt fishery as of 2000, comprising 25% of combined flatfish TACs. 

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Sibling Amendments