State of bottomfish management on WestPac’s agenda for March meeting

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The 202nd meeting of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council will convene in person March 25-27, 2025, at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, Coral Ballroom, Honolulu, HI. A remote participation option will be available by web conference (Webex).

SUMMARY OF ACTION ITEMS AT THE 202ND COUNCIL MEETING

• Update on American Samoa BMUS Revision (Final Action)

The proposed action aims to refine the bottomfish management unit species (BMUS) complex to better reflect the current state of the bottomfish fishery in American Samoa. Revisiting the BMUS is necessary to determine whether the current species composition within the complexes remains representative of the fishery. This evaluation will help the Council determine if conservation and management measures are needed to ensure the sustainable management of American Samoa’s bottomfish fisheries.

At its meeting, the Council will consider the following alternatives for final action and review the impacts of the action on the components required under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA). These components include the status determination criteria (SDC), Annual Catch Limit (ACL) and Accountability Measures (AMs), monitoring and bycatch, Essential Fish Habitat (EFH), and fishing communities.

• Amend the American Samoa FEP to Reclassify Five Current BMUS as ECS and Seven Current Non-MUS as BMUS

Under Alternative 2, the Council would recommend amending the American Samoa Fishery Ecosystem Plan (FEP) to revise the current BMUS list, reclassifying five of the former BMUS as Environmental Consulting Services (ECS) and seven non-MUS (i.e., a mix of ECS and species currently not listed in the FEP) as new MUS. Alternative 2 would expand the current list of 11 BMUS to a new list of 13 species.

The species reclassified as ECS would be identified as not in need of conservation and management based on the National Standard 1 (NS1) guidelines. Similarly, those species added to the BMUS list would be identified as being predominantly harvested in federal waters and in need of conservation and management. The reclassifications considered under this alternative are based on a hierarchical cluster analysis (Ahrens et al. 2022)5 and Plan Team deliberations, which included utilizing the 10 factors described in 50 CFR 600.305(c)(1) of the NS1 guidelines.

• Amend the American Samoa FEP to Reclassify Six Current BMUS as ECS and One unlisted species as BMUS

Under Alternative 3, the Council would recommend amending the American Samoa FEP to revise the current BMUS list, reclassifying six of the former BMUS as ECS and one species currently not listed in the FEP as new MUS. Alternative 3 would reduce the current list of 11 BMUS to a new list of six species. The species reclassified or added to the FEP as ECS would be identified as not in need of federal conservation and management based on the NS1 guidelines. Similarly, those species added to the BMUS list would be identified as being predominantly harvested in federal waters and in need of conservation and management. The Council considered the proposed reclassifications in consideration of the hierarchical cluster analyses (Ahrens et al. 2022; Ahrens 2024) and Action Team deliberations, which included utilizing the 10 factors described in 50 CFR 600.305(c)(1) of the NS1 guidelines, as well as assessing species for which available data are sufficient for a formal, scientific stock assessment.

1. ACL Specifications for MHI Uku for 2026 to 2029 (Initial Action)

At its 201st meeting held in December 2024, the Council received the 2024 main Hawaiian Islands (MHI) uku stock assessment update (Nadon 20241) that found the fishery was not overfished or experiencing overfishing. The stock assessment updated was updated with catch and effort from 2019 to 2023 and the fishery-independent diver survey from 2019. The only change to the modeling approach was the implementation of correction factors for the recreational fishery performance related to changes in effort sampling associated with the decline of phone landlines between 2003 and 2016.

The average catch from the commercial and non-commercial sectors in fishing years 2021 to 2023 was 247,381 pounds, which is 84% of the ACL (acceptable catch limit). However, implementation of in-season monitoring for both commercial and non-commercial fisheries has been challenging in the MHI uku fishery. At its 199th meeting, the Council took up the Archipelagic Plan Team’s recommendation to consider alternatives to in-season accountability measures for uku ACLs due to the limitations of Hawai‘i Marine Recreational Fishing Survey (HMRFS) data. Therefore, at its 202nd meeting, the Council may consider whether to continue in-season monitoring for the MHI uku fishery.

At its 202nd meeting, the Council will consider taking initial action on an option to specify ACLs and accountability measures (AMs) for the MHI uku fishery for fishing years 2026 to 2029.

2. ACL Specifications for MHI Deepwater Shrimp and Precious Corals for 2025-2028 (Final Action)

The Council will review recent data for the multi-year specification of the ACLs for the MHI deepwater shrimp (Heterocarpus laevigatus and H. ensifer) and precious corals for fishing years 2025-2028. The deepwater shrimp fishing year begins on January 1 and ends on December 31, and the precious corals fishing year begins on July 1 and ends on June 30.

• Tier 6 Acceptable Biological Catch Control Rule (Final Action)

In June 2023, the Council, at its 195th meeting in American Samoa, took initial action to revise the American Samoa Archipelago FEP list of BMUS to include new species and designate other species as ECS. Along with this action, there are MSA provisions that are also required, such as establishing ACLs.

ACLs have been an effective management tool for preventing overfishing in many fisheries. However, ACL-based management has been difficult in certain data-limited fisheries, including those that lack information on stock biomass and those in which there is limited ability to monitor and enforce fishery removals. To address these concerns, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) amended the NS1 guidelines in 2016 to clarify that, for certain stocks, including those for which data are not available either to set reference points or manage stocks based on maximum sustainable yield (MSY) or proxies, “alternative approaches” for satisfying statutory requirements other than those set forth in the NS1 guidelines can apply. NMFS is developing additional guidance to assist with the implementation of alternative approaches; this draft guidance is summarized below.

An alternative approach that may be practicable in the Pacific Islands Region (PIR) is to use a “rate-based” approach. The key difference between the weight/numbers-based ACLs that have historically been used in the PIR and rate-based ACLs is the metric being monitored and used for triggering AMs (i.e., rate vs. an amount of fish). In the rate-based approach, a metric, such as the mean size of fish in the data, is used to estimate a fishing mortality rate (F) and the maximum fishing mortality threshold (MFMT). A lower mean size of fish is generally associated with a higher F, and a higher mean size of fish is associated with a lower F. The mean size is also biologically relevant as an indicator of the percentage of mature fish and the spawning potential ratio.

The use of either metric would be closely related to the reference points associated with the established status determination criteria for that stock. The status determination criteria control rules would also be amended under the Council’s initial action to allow for the application of the results of new stock assessments.The decision to use a rate-based ACL for a data-limited stock should be based on whether:

1. The stock qualifies for use of the (h)(2) flexibilities for data-limited stocks;

2. There are sufficient data to estimate the current average fishing mortality rate, or a proxy for F, at MFMT; and

3. It is possible to manage with/enforce a rate-based approach.

If these conditions are met, then the Council could consider a rate-based ACL as an alternative to the standard approach (i.e., weight/numbers). In the Council’s initial action, it was unclear whether the intent was to apply the rate-based approach exclusively to American Samoa bottomfish or to incorporate "Tier 6" into the existing tiered system of ABC control rules applied to other fisheries.