172nd CFMC Regular Meeting Documents (December 8-9, 2020)

73690 Federal Register /Vol. 85, No. 224/Thursday, November 19, 2020/Notices

Appendix II—List of Topics Discussed in the Preliminary Decision Memorandum

I. Summary

II. Background

III. Period of Investigation

IV. Scope Comments

V. Scope of the Investigation

VI. Preliminary Critical Circumstances Finding

VII. Discussion of the Methodology

VIII. Currency Conversion

IX. Recommendation

[FR Doc. 2020–25488 Filed 11–18–20; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 3510–DS–P

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

[RTID 0648–XA651]

Caribbean Fishery Management Council; Public Meeting

AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce.

ACTION: Notice of public meeting.

SUMMARY: The Caribbean Fishery Management Council (CFMC) will hold the 172nd public meeting (virtual) to address the items contained in the tentative agenda included in SUPPLEMENTARYINFORMATION.

DATES: The 172nd CFMC public meeting (virtual) will be held on December 8, 2020, from 1 p.m. to 4:45 p.m., and on December 9, 2020, from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The meeting will be at AST (U.S. Caribbean time.)

ADDRESSES: You may join the 172nd CFMC public meeting (virtual) via Zoom, from a computer, tablet or smartphone by entering the following address:

Join Zoom Meeting: https:// us02web.zoom.us/j/83060685915?pwd= VmVsc1orSUtKck8xYk1XOXNDY1 ErZz09.

Meeting ID: 830 6068 5915. Passcode: 995658.

One tap mobile:

+17879451488, ,83060685915#,,,,,,0#, ,995658# Puerto Rico

+17879667727, ,83060685915#,,,,,,0#, ,995658# Puerto Rico

Dial by your location:

+1 787 945 1488 Puerto Rico

+1 787 966 7727 Puerto Rico

+1 939 945 0244 Puerto Rico

Meeting ID: 830 6068 5915. Passcode: 995658.

In case there are problems and we cannot reconnect via Zoom, the meeting will continue using GoToMeeting.

You can join the meeting from your computer, tablet or smartphone. https:// global.gotomeeting.com/join/ 971749317. You can also dial in using your phone. United States: +1 (408) 650–3123. Access Code: 971–749–317.

FORFURTHERINFORMATIONCONTACT: Miguel Rolo ´ n, Executive Director, Caribbean Fishery Management Council, 270 Munoz Rivera Avenue, Suite 401, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00918–1903, telephone: (787) 398–3717.

SUPPLEMENTARYINFORMATION: The following items included in the tentative agenda will be discussed: December 8, 2020, 1 p.m.–1:30 p.m. —Call to Order —Roll Call

—Adoption of Agenda

—Consideration of 171st Council Meeting Verbatim Transcriptions —Executive Director’s Report

December 8, 2020, 1:30 p.m.–1:45 p.m. —Five-Year Strategic Plan Update— Michelle Duval

December 8, 2020, 1:45 p.m.–2 p.m. —Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) Report on July 27–28, 2020, Meeting– Richard Appeldoorn —Ecosystem Conceptual Model (ECM) update

—Constant Catch recommendation December 8, 2020, 2 p.m.–3:30 p.m.

—Spiny Lobster Framework Amendment—Sarah Stephenson —Gear Amendment to the IslandBased FMPs, Deep-water Snapper Gear Options Paper—Maria Lopez —Ecosystem-Based Fishery Management Technical Advisory Panel Report—Sennai Habtes

December 8, 2020, 3:30 p.m.–3:45 p.m.

—St. Croix Territory/Federal Compatible Fishing Regulations— Carlos Farchette

December 8, 2020, 3:45 p.m.–4 p.m. —Squid Fishing Project—Raimundo Espinoza

December 8, 2020, 4 p.m.–4:20 p.m.

—Assessment of COVID–19 Impact on Commercial Fishing Associations in Puerto Rico—Marcos Hanke

December 8, 2020, 4:20 p.m.–4:30 p.m. —Queen Conch Rebuilding Plan— Next Steps—NMFS

December 8, 2020, 4:30 p.m.–4:45 p.m.

—Public Comment Period (5-minute presentations)

December 8, 2020, 4:45 p.m.

—Adjourn

December 9, 2020, 9 a.m.–9:15 a.m.

—Deepwater Snappers and Reef Fishes in the U.S. Caribbean: Aging Validation Using Bomb Radiocarbon and Preliminary Longevity Estimates—Virginia Shervette

December 9, 2020, 9:15 a.m.–9:30 a.m.

—Research on Queen Snapper in Puerto Rico—Kate Overly

December 9, 2020, 9:30 a.m.–9:45 a.m.

—Queen triggerfish reproductive biology in the U.S. Caribbean— Jesu ´ s Rivera Herna ´ ndez

December 9, 2020, 9:45 a.m.–10:15 a.m.

—Outreach and Education Advisory Panel Report—Alida Ortı ´ z

December 9, 2020, 10:15 a.m.–11:15 a.m.

—Enforcement (15 minutes each)

—Puerto Rico—Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER)

—U.S.V. I.—Department of Planning and Natural Resources (DPNR)

—U.S. Coast Guard

—NOAA Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement

December 9, 2020, 11:15 a.m.–11:30 a.m.

—Other Business

—Julian Magras Presentation

December 9, 2020, 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.

—Public Comment Period (5-minute presentations)

December 9, 2020, 12:30 p.m.

—Adjourn

The order of business may be adjusted as necessary to accommodate the completion of agenda items. The meeting will begin on December 8, 2020, at 1 p.m. AST, and will end on December 9, 2020, at 12:30 p.m. AST. Other than the start time on the first day of the meeting, interested parties should be aware that discussions may start earlier or later than indicated in the agenda, at the discretion of the Chair.

Special Accommodations

Simultaneous interpretation will be provided.

Se proveera ´ interpretacio ´ n en espanol. Para interpretacio ´ n en espan ˜ ol puede marcar el siguiente nu ´ mero para entrar a la reunio ´ n:

US/Canada ´ : llame al +1–888–947–3988, cuando el sistema conteste, entrar el nu ´ mero 1*999996#.

For English interpretation you may dial the following number to enter the meeting:

US/Canada: call +1–888–947–3988, when the system answers enter the number 2*999996#.

For any additional information on this public virtual meeting, please contact Diana Martino, Caribbean Fishery Management Council, 270 Mun ˜ oz Rivera Avenue, Suite 401, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 00918–1903, telephone: (787) 226–8849.

Authority: 16 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.

Dated: November 16, 2020.

Rey Israel Marquez, Acting Deputy Director, Office of Sustainable Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service.

[FR Doc. 2020–25587 Filed 11–18–20; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 3510–22–P

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

[RTID 0648–XA654]

New England Fishery Management Council; Public Meeting

AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce.

ACTION: Notice of public meeting.

SUMMARY: The New England Fishery Management Council (Council) is scheduling a public meeting of its Herring Advisory Panel via webinar to consider actions affecting New England fisheries in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Recommendations from this group will be brought to the full Council for formal consideration and action, if appropriate.

DATES: This webinar will be held on Wednesday, December 9, 2020 at 9 a.m. Webinar registration URL information: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/ register/6747145818220045327.

ADDRESSES: Council address: New England Fishery Management Council, 50 Water Street, Mill 2, Newburyport, MA 01950.

FORFURTHERINFORMATIONCONTACT: Thomas A. Nies, Executive Director, New England Fishery Management Council; telephone: (978) 465–0492.

SUPPLEMENTARYINFORMATION:

Agenda

The Advisory Panel will meet to review and discuss 2021 work priorities for the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan including: (1) A framework action that considers spawning closures on Georges Bank (GB); (2) development of a formal rebuilding plan for Atlantic herring; (3) review and potentially adjust accountability measures (AMs) in the herring plan; and (4) coordinate with the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) on various herring management issues (i.e., river herring and shad (RH/S)). Other business will be discussed, as necessary.

Although non-emergency issues not contained on the agenda may come

before this Council for discussion, those issues may not be the subject of formal action during this meeting. Council action will be restricted to those issues specifically listed in this notice and any issues arising after publication of this notice that require emergency action under section 305(c) of the MagnusonStevens Act, provided the public has been notified of the Council’s intent to take final action to address the emergency. The public also should be aware that the meeting will be recorded. Consistent with 16 U.S.C. 1852, a copy of the recording is available upon request.

Special Accommodations

This meeting is physically accessible to people with disabilities. Requests for sign language interpretation or other auxiliary aids should be directed to Thomas A. Nies, Executive Director, at (978) 465–0492, at least 5 days prior to the meeting date.

Authority: 16 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.

Dated: November 16, 2020.

Rey Israel Marquez, Acting Deputy Director, Office of Sustainable Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service. [FR Doc. 2020–25588 Filed 11–18–20; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 3510–22–P

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

[RTID 0648–XA631]

South Atlantic Fishery Management Council; Public Meetings

AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce.

ACTION: Notice of public meetings.

SUMMARY: The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) will hold meetings of the following: Snapper Grouper Committee; Dolphin Wahoo Committee; Habitat and EcosystemBased Management Committee, Mackerel Cobia Committee; Executive Committee (partially Closed Session); and Citizen Science Committee. The meeting week will also include a formal public comment session and a meeting of the Full Council (with a partially Closed Session). Due to public health concerns associated with COVID–19 and current travel restrictions, the meeting originally planned for Wrightsville Beach, NC will be held via webinar.

DATES: The Council meeting will be held from 9 a.m. on Monday, December

7, 2020 until 5 p.m. on Thursday, December 10, 2020.

ADDRESSES: The meeting will be held via webinar. Webinar registration is required. Details are included in

SUPPLEMENTARYINFORMATION

FORFURTHERINFORMATIONCONTACT: Kim Iverson, Public Information Officer, SAFMC; phone: (843) 302–8440 or toll free: (866) SAFMC–10; fax: (843) 769–4520; email: kim.iverson@safmc.net.

SUPPLEMENTARYINFORMATION: Meeting information, including agendas, overviews, briefing materials and the meeting registration link will be posted on the Council’s website at: http:// safmc.net/safmc-meetings/councilmeetings/. Public comment: Written comments may be directed to John Carmichael, Executive Director, South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (see Council address) or electronically via the Council’s website: https:// safmc.wufoo.com/forms/ m1ijpb670ziz2jz/. Comments received by close of business the Monday before the meeting (11/30/20) will be compiled, posted to the website as part of the meeting materials, and included in the administrative record; please use the Council’s online form available from the website. Written comments received after the Monday before the meeting must be submitted using the Council’s online form available from the website. Comments will automatically be posted to the website and available for Council consideration. Comments received prior to 9 a.m. on Wednesday, December 9, 2020 will be a part of the meeting administrative record.

The items of discussion in the individual meeting agendas are as follows:

Meeting Agenda

Council Session I, Monday, December 7, 2020, 9 a.m. Until 12 p.m. (Closed Session)

The Council will consider appointments for open advisory panel seats, review the composition of the Mackerel Cobia Advisory Panel (AP), and advisory panel policies. A legal briefing on litigation will also be provided if needed.

Council Session II, Monday, December 7, 2020, 1:30 p.m. Until 2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. Until 6 p.m.

The Council will discuss the Acceptable Biological Catch (ABC) Control Rule including carry-over and phase-in provisions. Beginning at 5 p.m. Council members will receive a presentation on Draft Amendment 14 to the 2006 Consolidated Highly Migratory

The Caribbean Fishery Management Council convened via webinar on

Friday morning, September 25, 2020, and was called to order at

9:00 o’clock a.m. by Chairman Marcos Hanke.

MARCOS HANKE: Good morning, everyone. It’s 9:02 a.m. on September

25, and it’s Friday, and it’s 2020, and we’re going to start the

meeting. I am Marcos Hanke, and I’m the Chairman of the Caribbean

Council. Good morning, everyone. Before we start, just a reminder

to ask for a turn to speak using the chat, with the emoji or raise

your hand for a turn to speak, and be to the point, very brief,

because it’s a virtual meeting, and that’s very helpful to

everybody.

If the system crashes, we have a secondary option of Google Meet,

and I will instruct you. If we need to change to Google Meet, we

will wait for ten minutes, and then we will change to the other

platform, but, otherwise, we’re going to stay on this platform,

and we’re going to start now with the roll call. Natalia, can you

help me?

MIGUEL ROLON: For the record, what we are going to do from now on

is that Natalia will read the names that are on the list of

attendees, and that will save time, and then those people who are

on the phone, that we cannot identify, Natalia will give time for

them to identify themselves. Go ahead, Natalia.

NATALIA PERDOMO: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. On my list,

I have Graciela Garcia-Moliner, Liajay Rivera, Miguel Rolon, Clay

Porch, Jack McGovern, Roy Crabtree, Alida Ortiz, Bill Cordero,

Carlos Farchette, Christina Olan, Damaris Delgado, Edward

Schuster, Jocelyn D’Ambrosio, John Walter, Julian Magras, Marcos

Hanke, María de los Irizarry, Maria Lopez, Michelle Duval, Miguel

Borges, Nelson Crespo, Nicole Angeli, Ricardo Lopez, Richard

Appeldoorn, Robert Copeland, Sarah Stephenson, Wilson Santiago. I

think that’s it.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much. We are going to

NATALIA PERDOMO: I’m sorry. I am seeing Adyan Rios.

MARCOS

APPROVAL OF AGENDA

MARCOS HANKE: Yes, and I was going to say that Tony Blanchard is

with Julian Magras, and they are together on the same computer, as

I understand. Thank you very much to Julian for the support and

for Tony to be there. We will keep going on.

We are going to have an approval for the agenda now, and the agenda

has us from 9:00 to 12:00 a.m. with the five-year strategic plan,

and then we’ll have a lunchbreak from 12:00 to 10:00. From 1:00

to 2:30 will be the E.O. 13921 discussion, and then we’ll have

Other Business. For Other Business, I want to recommend to include

a brief discussion on the approval of the 170th verbatim

transcriptions from the last meeting.

It’s posted on the webpage of the council, and an IBFMP

announcement, with some brief details made by Maria Lopez, and the

status of the use of the Zoom meetings by Miguel Rolon, and the

virtual education for the marine reserves. Miguel Rolon is going

to do that too, and, also, the last item I want to add to the Other

Business is the meeting on October 7 between the Outreach and

Education Panel and the DAPs and the officers. We are going to

discuss that at the end of the meeting. Any comment?

MIGUEL ROLON: For the record, lunch is from 12:00 to 1:00 and not

from 12:00 to 10:00.

MARCOS HANKE: Okay. Thank you. I would like a motion to approve

the agenda, or any comment.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much to all. All in favor, say aye.

MIGUEL ROLON: Marcos, because we don’t have a It’s better to

say any opposition and the motion carries.

MARCOS HANKE: Okay. Is there any opposition? Hearing none, the

motion carries. We are going to pass to the first presentation,

but, before that, like I said before, we are happy to announce

that the island-based FMP was approved, and we’re going to have

more details in Other Business later on in the meeting, but

congratulations to all that have worked so hard for this to be a

reality. We’re going to start now with Michelle Duval and the

Five-Year Strategic Plan Presentation.

ROY

MARCOS

Marcos, could I say just one thing first?

ROY CRABTREE: Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to thank all of

you for the beautiful retirement gift that you sent me after the

last meeting, the coral reef in a glass container. It did arrive,

and I got it, and I thank you all very much, and I will think about

my times in the U.S. Caribbean when I look at that, and so thank

you very much.

MARCOS HANKE: You are more than welcome. Go ahead, Miguel.

MIGUEL ROLON: I was just saying that Diana now can be happier,

because we were wondering if you got it intact, and so I’m glad

that it’s there in your home. Thank you for all the work that you

have done with us, Roy, and I know that you will be accompanying

us during the December meeting, but we just wanted to take this

opportunity.

I have been in the council for forty or more years, as a council

member and staff, and you are probably one of the best RAs that we

have ever had. You not only have a marine background, but the

interest of helping the Southeast Region, and, in our case, helping

move Caribbean programs into these plans, and, for that, we are

really grateful. Thank you.

MARCOS HANKE: Yes, and now we’re going to start then, and thank

you very much, Roy, again, with Michelle Duval.

MICHELLE DUVAL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to thank

everybody today for allowing me the opportunity to lead you through

a discussion on strategic planning and to give you a little bit of

an update on where we are.

It seems like we’ve been doing this for a while, and so I just

thought that I would give a little process update first. We

launched an online survey in March of this year, and, once the

impacts of the pandemic became clear, we extended that through the

end of July, and I provided updates to the DAPs, the Outreach and

Education Advisory Panel, as well as you all, on survey

participation, and, shortly after that, we ran into some problems

with the Paperwork Reduction Act.

That required us to sort of shift our approach a little bit to

develop an alternative that is really more discussion-based, and

so we launched this approach in August, and the Outreach and

Education Advisory Panel and the District Advisory Panels

participated in this alternative approach, and now, here in

September, it’s the council’s turn to do so.

The way this alternative approach is organized is we organized

things around four different discussion themes of resource health;

social, cultural, and economic concerns; management and

operational issues; and communication and outreach.

The goal of these discussions was to have the DAPs and the O&E AP

provide us with their priorities that they think the council should

focus on under each one of these discussion themes, and so we had

a number of different topics under each theme, and I just wanted

to note that those topics really came from the public input that

was received through the development of the island-based FMPs,

and, as we went through this process with the District Advisory

Panels, they provided some suggestions and modifications to the

topics under the different themes, to make them clearer, and so I

will try to point those out as we go through this.

The other thing, before we get started, is this is about

priorities, and so, while there are a lot of different topics under

each one of these themes, it doesn’t The intent of this exercise

is to really try to determine what to tackle first, when it comes

to these different types of topics, and it doesn’t mean that none

of them are important or that ones that don’t rise to the top as

being priorities are not important or that they won’t be addressed

in the future, but it’s just that we have to start somewhere, and

the council can’t do everything all at once.

The way I’m going to approach this is that, first, I’m just going

to walk everybody through the different topics under each one of

the four themes, and then we’ll go back to the top, and what we

would really like to do is get your input on what do you think are

really sort of the top-five priorities that the council should be

focusing on as we move forward with development of the strategic

plan, and so I’m going to start with the first topic, which is

really resource health.

One of the things I want to note is there are a number of different

discussion topics under here, and one of the things that the

District Advisory Panels noted is that, you know, there really is

kind of a lot of overlap with many of these topics, and so, for

example, sedimentation and erosion is really a form of pollution,

but pollution also includes things such as marine debris, plastics,

nutrient pollution, and things like that.

One of the other additions that I would like to point out on this

list of topics is that the DAPs had a discussion about the fact

that habitat loss and destruction, for example, is integrally

linked to habitat creation and rehabilitation. I think one of the

other things that came up during the DAP discussions is that

enforcement is also linked to, or is key to, many of these resource

health topics, such as enforcement of coastal development

regulations or regulations that are related to erosion and

sedimentation or illegal fishing, which impacts resource health.

You can see we have, just very quickly, invasive species; climate

change; erosion and sedimentation; coastal development; natural

disasters; this topic of habitat loss/destruction and

creation/rehabilitation; enforcement; pollution; bycatch and

discard mortality; abundance of bait fish or forage; lack of

biological or ecosystem information, as well as data mining. That

was one of the things that I meant to note earlier, just that data

mining is one opportunity to try to address lack of information,

and that there are many different datasets out there, and we can

try to be wise with resources by mining those different datasets

for additional information. Then the last few topics are

overfishing and illegal fishing.

The next theme that we discussed was social, cultural, and economic

concerns, and there’s a pretty large list of topics here. The

first one is closed seasons and stock assessments for the species

that are impacted by those closed seasons, and so, for example,

the snappers for which there is a closed season, and then also

evaluation of the current area and season closures that the council

has in place, to make sure that they’re actually effective, or

that they’re meeting their intended goal, and so this was a topic

that was originally two different topics, and the DAPs decided

that these things are really very closely linked, and so it was

better to incorporate them all together as one.

Increasing costs, and so increasing costs of just engaging in

fishing activities, and so cost of gear, cost of fuel, cost of

bait, things like that. Competition with foreign fishermen,

recreational and commercial user conflicts, displacement of

fishing communities, through such things as coastal development.

Then the ability to support a family through fishing activities.

Illegal or unlicensed commercial fishers; a lack of new entrants 1 into the fishery; a lack of social and economic data; excess gear,

such as perhaps too many hooks or too many traps, et cetera.

Market instability, and so this was another one of the topics where

the DAPs had some discussion, in that, given the reality of the

pandemic right now, that people are seeking out new ways to

virtually advertise their products, through things such as social

media, in order to try to bring some additional stability to the

market, and that part of this should be about prioritizing use of

locally-caught seafood.

The last few topics are infrastructure needs, and so this includes

not only sufficient boat ramps and landing sites, but also market

sites, and those things tend to be two different places. The place

where fishermen come in and land are not always the places where

the fish are marketed, and then, finally, inadequate enforcement

and excess fishing capacity.

The next theme of discussion was management and operational issues,

and so we have a list of topics here. The first includes accurate

and timely commercial and recreational catch data, and one of the

things that came up in discussion with the DAPs was mandatory

reporting for all sectors.

Enforcement of existing regulations. Then involving fishers in

data collection, whether that is fishery-dependent data collection

and different ways to do that or collection of fishery-independent

data, through cooperative efforts. Regulatory consistency, and so

this refers to regulatory consistency between federal and

territorial regulations, and there was some conversation among the

DAPs that there might be instances where such compatibility is

feasible and instances in which it is not, and so we just wanted

to make sure to clarify that.

Then having clear management objectives addressing bycatch and

regulatory discards. Gear limits, and so a limit on the total

amount of gear that someone might be allowed to have. Ensuring

cost-effective data collection technology, and so any electronic

reporting of Technologies that are used need to be cost

effective. Then balancing commercial and recreational concerns

and incorporation of climate change impacts to the management

program. Consideration of a federal permit program, and then

territorial licensing requirements, and so there was some

discussion about the territorial licensing requirements for

fishers, and, for example, one of the things that came up here was

considering a recreational licensing requirement, in order to

improve reporting.

The last set of topics that we talked about had to do with

communication and outreach, and we started with a slightly smaller

list, and then, through the DAP discussions, we added a couple of

things, and so this was not a list where we asked folks to name

their top priorities.

It was recognized that all of these efforts, all communication and

outreach efforts, were important, and so what we were asking folks

for was do we have a complete enough list here, are there

additional things in this list of communication and outreach

priorities that you would like to see more detail on, or that the

council should focus on a little bit more, and so one of the first

things was frequency of communication, and so alerts and reminders

of scoping meetings and council meetings. Should that be more

frequent, or should it be less frequent?

The variety of tools used in communication, you know, different

stakeholder groups prefer different types of communication, such

as email, use of the website, social media, paper, text message

alerts. Are there other tools that the council should be

considering?

Educational resources, for example, information that is easily

understood on science and stock assessment, information on

business planning for commercial and for-hire fishers, information

about restaurant choices that promote local seafood, some of these

things that the council is already engaged in, and, also, including

other jurisdictions and agencies, such as the Coast Guard or the

National Park Service, that also have marine interest, and they

have educational materials that would be helpful.

Improving general public awareness of fisheries issues. expanding

communication to other groups, and sort of maybe perhaps non-

traditional groups, such as divers or dive shop owners, in order

to increase awareness of fisheries issues.

Having regular in-person outreach workshops on important topics.

Obviously, this is something that’s very challenging to do right

now, but this was a suggestion that was brought forward by the

DAPs, and the Chair specifically, that, in order to involve more

people in the process, it would be great to have To pick your

time wisely, in between weather and fishing activities, and have

an in-person workshop on a topic that’s really important to

fishers, and that can help generate future interest and future

attendance at council meetings and in the council process.

This next one, clarity and simplicity of presentations, is very

important. There are a lot of acronyms, and there is a lot of

jargon in the fisheries management process, and so, in order to

make sure that people feel comfortable in this process, and that

they want to come back, it’s very important to increase the clarity

and simplicity of presentations.

Then, finally, this was something that was added through the DAP

discussions, was to expand the role of fishery liaisons beyond

participation on the Outreach & Education Advisory Panel and that

this will help increase the liaison understanding of fisheries

issues, and it will also increase public understanding of the role

of liaisons. One example that was provided is having the liaisons

give a presentation of each island’s activities at future council

meetings.

That was a list of different discussion topics under each one of

these four themes, and so, like I said, we’re going to go back,

and what we would really like here is to have input from around

the council table about what you all believe are the top priorities

within each of those four areas, but, before we did that, I did

just want to quickly outline the next steps in the process.

One of the things that we’re going to do next week is we’re going

to be launching an online comment form that we’re going to have

open through the end of October, and so the DAP members were

diligent in going out and talking to fishers in their areas, on

their islands, to gather input, but we wanted to make sure that

anybody, any member of the public, who was not able to attend one

of these public discussions still had another opportunity to

provide input on what they thought priorities would be for the

council under each one of these areas.

Once that is completed, we’re working on analysis and a summary of

all the input and report preparation, and then the plan is to give

a presentation to you all at your December meeting on all the input

that’s been gathered and the results from that and then start

drafting a strategic plan in early next year.

With that, we’re going to I would be happy to take any questions,

and then we can move back into council input and discussion on

these four themes, and so thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and

I will turn things back over to you.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much, Michelle. That was a great

presentation. It was very clear and very simple and easy to

follow. Are there any general comments or questions about the

presentation? Then we will go around the table to have the input

of each member of the council.

Hearing none, Michelle, how do you want to go about this? Do you

want to start around the council members, to have their comments

on any specific Is there any slide that you want to keep it up,

to facilitate the discussion?

MICHELLE DUVAL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think that would be

best, if we could go around the council table, and we’ll keep this

slide up here and ask folks, of these resource health topics, what

do you think are the top-five that the council should consider

focusing on in the development of its strategic plan, and so that’s

the information we’re looking for from everybody.

MARCOS HANKE: One question. Do you want any kind of

prioritization, for them to go from 1 to 5 or something like that,

or in general?

MICHELLE DUVAL: Just in general, and we don’t need people to say

this is Number 1 and this is Number 2. What we’re really looking

for is really just are there five of these that you think are the

most important, and we’re not asking for any ratings or any

rankings.

MARCOS HANKE: Perfect. Let’s go around the table with the council

members first, and let me see who is on my list. First is Carlos

Farchette.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Good morning. I do have a printout of this,

but I don’t have it in front of me. Go to someone else right now,

so I can get that printout, and I need to review something here,

but I do have something to talk about when it comes to health, but

I will do it. I need to get my print-out.

MARCOS HANKE: Okay. No problem, Carlos. Thank you. Go ahead,

Miguel.

MIGUEL ROLON: In order to structure the discussion, we are going

to go one-by-one, and so what we need to know is, out of this

resource health topic that we have here, which are the top-five,

and would you like to add anything to it, which are some that you

can combine, and we need that from each council member.

Then we will continue the same thing until we call the fourth one,

and try not to mix outreach and education and socioeconomics and

all that. Wait until we have the slide that Dr. Duval is going to

present to you, and so, the first time around, we need to hear

from the council members, the same way that we did with the other

groups, are which are the top five that you have for the health

resources, and then Diana and I will help Dr. Duval by tallying

I believe that, yes, you should say that my Number 1 is this, and

my Number 2 is this one, because that’s the way we are going to

tally these up. You can start with yourself, if you want to, as

an example.

MARCOS HANKE: Yes, and I will start with myself. I have here

Number 1 is erosion and sedimentation. Number 2 is habitat loss

and destruction. Number 3 is bycatch and discards. Number 4 is

pollution, and Number 5 is lack of biological and ecosystem

information and data mining.

MIGUEL ROLON: Are there any comments that you may have on this

slide, general comments?

MARCOS HANKE: If I have any general comments?

MIGUEL ROLON: That you may have, yes. If not, that’s okay, and

we’ll go to the next one.

MARCOS HANKE: No, I don’t have any general comments right now,

and I was not ready to comment specifically on each of them. I

just have the list, and, when I filled out my form, I put my

comments on the form, when I had a little more time.

MICHELLE DUVAL: Mr. Chairman, I am just seeing, in the chat, a

question from Damaris of if I could just repeat what the different

topics are on the screen, and so I’m just going to quickly do that

before we move on to the next person, if that’s okay.

MICHELLE DUVAL: Thank you. They are invasive species, climate

change, erosion and sedimentation, coastal development, natural

disasters, habitat loss/destruction and creation/rehabilitation,

enforcement, pollution, bycatch and discard mortality, abundance

of baitfish or forage, lack of biological or ecosystem information

and data mining, overfishing, and illegal fishing. Thank you.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Michelle. Let’s go to Vanessa, are

you ready to comment?

VANESSA RAMIREZ: Okay. Thank you. I have here overfishing,

illegal fishing, habitat loss, coastal development, and

MIGUEL ROLON: Can you repeat that slowly?

VANESSA RAMIREZ: Overfishing, illegal fishing, habitat loss,

coastal development, and enforcement.

MIGUEL ROLON: Thank you, Vanessa.

MARCOS HANKE: Carlos.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have as my Number 1 is

erosion and sedimentation, pollution, abundance of baitfish and

forage fish, enforcement, illegal fishing.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Carlos. Tony, are you ready?

TONY BLANCHARD: What I have here at the top of list is climate

change, and then it’s coastal development. Then I have habitat

loss or destruction. Then I have lack of biological or ecosystem

information and data mining. At the end of my list, I have invasive

species.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Tony. The representative of the Virgin

Islands.

NICOLE ANGELI: The top five that we have are habitat

loss/destruction and creation/rehabilitation. Then second is

enforcement. Third is climate change. Fourth is pollution, and

fifth is lack of biological or ecosystem information and data

mining.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you. Puerto Rico DNR.

DAMARIS DELGADO: Good morning. We have pollution, habitat

loss/destruction, overfishing, lack of data and data mining, and

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Damaris. Who am I missing?

MICHELLE DUVAL: I think you’re missing Dr. Crabtree, maybe.

MARCOS HANKE: Yes. Dr. Crabtree, go ahead.

ROY CRABTREE: On my list, I have lack of timely information as

Number 1. Number 2 is overfishing, Number 3 is enforcement, Number

4 is habitat loss, and Number 5 is illegal fishing.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Roy. Michelle, we are done with the

council members, correct?

MICHELLE DUVAL: I think so, Mr. Chairman, but I do believe that

Mr. Blanchard may have just a comment, before we move on.

MARCOS HANKE: Go ahead, Tony.

TONY BLANCHARD: I would just like to make a comment that I am not

saying that everybody’s list is wrong, but I just think they look

at it in a different way. I think, for the majority of us here,

we put enforcement on the list, but, really, without the lack of

addressing the climate change, the coastal development and habitat

loss, the lack of biological information, and the invasive species,

the overfishing and illegal fishing, and the lack of enforcement

isn’t going to do a thing, and we don’t even have to worry about

that. That was my comment.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Tony. I heard you a little broken, but

I was able to hear you good enough. Roy, do you have a comment?

ROY CRABTREE: There are some things on the list that I think are

extremely important. Climate change If you asked me what’s the

biggest issue we’re facing as natural resource managers, I would

say climate change, but the reason I didn’t put it as one of my

priorities is it’s more of a global, worldwide problem, and it’s

not clear to me what the council would be able to do to address

that.

Likewise, some things like coastal development and those kinds of

things, and, some of them, it’s hard for me to see how they fall

within our realm, so to speak, and so I didn’t put some of those

on my list, and I tried to focus on things that are more directly

related to our authority and our ability to have some impact on

them.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you for your comments. I was on the same

line of thought when I recommended mine. Does anybody else want

to make a comment or an observation? I don’t see anybody on the

chat for now. Michelle, do you have what you need from this part?

MICHELLE DUVAL: I think so, Mr. Chairman. It’s really helpful to

hear these comments about the council focusing its priorities on

things that are more directly within its purview, and, again, I

just wanted to make sure that everyone knew that these topics were

taken directly from the public input that was contained in the

island-based FMPs.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much. What is the next topic, or

slide, to cover?

MICHELLE DUVAL: I think I see Dr. Appeldoorn would like a turn to

speak.

MARCOS HANKE: We are going to pass now to Richard.

RICHARD APPELDOORN: Thank you. This is kind of following-up on

Tony’s comment and Roy’s response. I think every issue that’s

listed here has a place in the ecosystem conceptual model that

we’ve been developing in the SSC, and I’m willing to bet the DAPs

have something very similar as well, and a lot of these things are

interrelated. Climate change is certainly driving natural

disasters, for example, and coastal development drives erosion and

sedimentation and pollution, et cetera. By prioritizing one,

you’re sort of automatically bringing in some of these other things

that later feed into them or result from it.

The other aspect was that, just hearing the diversity of responses,

that it was very similar to what we experienced in the SSC when we

were trying to prioritize the connections between our sub-models.

There was a lot of diversity among how people viewed things, which

drove how they responded, and there was a lot of diversity, even

if they were viewing things the same, as to what their priorities

were, and so this gives you, as this gets developed, analysis of

what are the important issues, but you’ll also get kind of what’s

the diversity of issues that are being highlighted, without ruling

out anything that wasn’t mentioned, because, as Roy mentioned, all

of these things are important, but it’s just where are you going

to put your money. Thank you.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you for your observation and comments.

Michelle, do we want to go through the DAP chairs now, on the same

topic, and we already heard about Go ahead, Miguel.

MIGUEL ROLON: No, and the DAPs already did all that. This is for

the council members only at this time, and comments that we may

have from each one of them, but, at the end of the presentation,

Michelle will address that, and we will ask each one of the chairs

to contribute.

MIGUEL ROLON: They already did all of this, and they have a

report.

MARCOS HANKE: Okay. What is the next step that you need from us,

MICHELLE DUVAL: Next, Mr. Chairman, we’ll go on to social,

economic, cultural, and economic concerns, and so we would like to

do a similar thing, is ask folks if they could provide what they

think the top five priorities should be under this particular

discussion theme.

Again, if there are any additional comments that folks have with

regard to the list of topics here, and any additional thoughts

they want to provide with regard to why folks have selected certain

topics as priorities, versus not, and so we’ll just embark on the

same process that we just did for the last theme area. Thank you.

MARCOS HANKE: Okay. I will start, as an example, and let’s follow

the same order.

MIGUEL ROLON: For the record, I believe that Damaris asked for

Dr. Duval to read the list. I will read it for everybody, because

some people apparently are on the phone. I believe that probably

Michelle Duval should read it for the record, so everybody that is

on the phone can then hear what we have on the slide. Michelle,

can you read them?

MICHELLE DUVAL: Yes. Absolutely, Miguel. The first topic under

here is closed seasons and stock assessments for those impacted

species. In other words, the species for which the closed season

has been established. Then evaluation of area and season closures,

to make sure that they are To see what impact they’re having

and whether they’re meeting their intended goals.

The next topic is increasing costs, and so the increasing costs of

fishing, the bait, fuel, gear, ice. Competition with foreign

fishermen, recreational and commercial user conflicts,

displacement of fishing communities, the ability to support a

family through the income from fishing, illegal and unlicensed

commercial fishers, lack of new entrants into the fishery, lack of

social and economic data, excess gear, market instability, and,

again, this includes things like new ways to try to virtually

advertise a product to create some stability and prioritizing

locally-caught seafood. Then infrastructure needs, such as

landing sites and market sites. Also, inadequate enforcement and

excess fishing capacity.

MARCOS HANKE: Tony, go ahead.

TONY BLANCHARD: Marcos, can she bring it up on the screen, because

we just started the computer, and I can’t see the list.

MIGUEL ROLON: It’s on the

MARCOS HANKE: It’s on the screen right now.

TONY BLANCHARD: It is? I am probably looking at the wrong screen,

because I am seeing you on the phone.

MIGUEL ROLON: You need to have a screen on the computer to see

it, and you don’t want to start your camera.

MARCOS HANKE: Tony, I am going to take a screenshot of the list

and send it to you over the phone. Okay?

TONY

Okay. Thanks.

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: Mr. Chair, if I may, he might have to

close the area where all the pictures are, so that he can open up

the slide.

MARCOS HANKE: Okay. Let’s start with Carlos Farchette. I have

already sent the image to Tony Blanchard.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Actually, if Tony has an

iPhone, and he takes his finger and swipes his screen to the right,

it will bring up the screen. If you swipe it to the left, it will

bring up your face.

Anyway, for my Number 1, I have closed seasons and stock

assessments for impacted species and evaluation of area and season

closures. Then I have recreational and commercial user conflicts.

Then lack of new entrants into the fishery. Number 4 is

infrastructure needs, the landing and market sites, and Number 5

is inadequate enforcement.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Carlos.

MIGUEL ROLON: Mr. Chairman, notice that we have compressed closed

seasons and stock assessments and seasonal and closed areas into

one, and it was separate at the beginning, and so, just for the

record, that’s all we have in one.

MARCOS HANKE: Okay. Thank you. Vanessa.

VANESSA RAMIREZ: Marcos, thanks. Practically, we have the same

three in the order, the closed seasons and stock assessment and

recreational and commercial user conflicts and lack of new

entrants. Then, also, I have competition with foreign fishermen

and inadequate enforcement. Thanks.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Vanessa. Tony, are you ready to make

your comments? I cannot hear Tony for now. Puerto Rico. Damaris, 1 can you hear me? Let’s go to the Virgin Islands.

NICOLE ANGELI: We would have recreational and commercial user

conflicts, ability to support a family, lack of social and economic

data, illegal and unlicensed commercial fishers, and

infrastructure needs.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much. Roy Crabtree.

ROY CRABTREE: Number 1 I would say is closed seasons and stock

assessments for impacted species and evaluation of area and season

closures. Number 2 is the illegal fishers, and Number 3 is lack

of social and economic data. Number 4 is infrastructure needs,

and Number 5 is the enforcement.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you. Let’s try again Tony Blanchard.

TONY BLANCHARD: What I have here is the ability to support the

family, the increasing costs, the recreational and commercial user

conflicts, the seasonal closures, and give me a minute here. The

illegal and unlicensed commercial issues.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Tony. Puerto Rico. Damaris, are you

there? Ricardo, can you hear me? We cannot get in touch with

Damaris. She had another meeting to attend. She wrote me that

you could represent her. Ricardo, can you hear us?

RICARDO LOPEZ: Yes, I can hear you clearly.

MARCOS HANKE: Okay. Thank you. I cannot get in touch with

Damaris, and can you support us on this topic, to choose the DNR

RICARDO LOPEZ: I will try. I was having a lot of problems to

hear, to connect to the meeting until right now. If you can give

me a little briefing of that, I will try to help.

MIGUEL ROLON: Ricardo, what we are doing today is that Dr. Duval

is presenting four groups of topics that we would like to hear the

top five, according to your opinion, personal opinion, and it

doesn’t necessarily have to be the position of the Department of

Natural Resources, but, based on your professional opinion, what

are the top-five topics that we would like to include in our five-

year strategic plan, and it doesn’t mean that the rest of the list

will be scrapped away. What we are looking for here are the

priorities, according to the best opinion that we can get,

professional opinion, from all involved.

At this time, if you can see the slide, you have several under

social and cultural and economic concerns, and we have several

topics, and you may take your time and jot them down, according to

your best professional opinion, what are the top five that should

be included in the strategic plan. Again, it doesn’t mean that

the others will be eliminated, but it’s just that we will pay more

attention in the writing of the five-year strategic plan of those

topics that come on top.

To give you an idea, from the people that already talked, we have

the closed season and assessments is number one, and it’s the top

priority, and recreational and commercial uses is also a top

priority, followed by illegal and unlicensed fishing,

infrastructure needs, and inadequate enforcement. That’s what we

are looking for at this time.

Damaris called me last night and said that she had another meeting

to attend, and, because we don’t have to vote on any of this, that

you will be able then to represent her and, at this time, if you’re

ready, now or before we finish, you can give us your top five, or

you can pass on this at this time, and then we’ll go to the next

one, and, when you’re ready, you can give us We can go back

again, and you can give us your top five. It’s up to you.

RICARDO LOPEZ: I am ready. I am ready. I agree with the top

five that you already mentioned, except that I will put inadequate

enforcement as number one.

MIGUEL ROLON: Ricardo, just tell me your top five, without

agreeing with anybody, but just the top five.

RICARDO LOPEZ: Inadequate

as Number 1.

Closed seasons and stock assessments for impacted

species and evaluation of area and season closures as Number 2.

MIGUEL ROLON: Go ahead, please.

RICARDO LOPEZ: Illegal and unlicensed commercial fishers as Number

3. Then infrastructure needs as Number 4. Recreational and

commercial user conflicts as Number 5.

MIGUEL ROLON: Thank you very much, Ricardo.

RICARDO LOPEZ: Thanks to you.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much, Ricardo. Now my priorities

are closed season and evaluation, increasing costs,

infrastructure, recreational and commercial fishermen conflicts,

inadequate enforcement. Those are my five.

MICHELLE DUVAL: Thank you, Marcos. Were there any comments that

folks wanted to offer on this particular theme of social, cultural,

and economic concerns before we move on to the next section?

MARCOS HANKE: I want to make a comment about what Miguel said in

the two parts that are put together there, in terms of the stock

assessment and the evaluation of the closed areas. For me, I chose

that and gave more weight because of the evaluation of the closed

areas, and that’s just a comment. Anybody else? Richard. Maybe

that was on the chat only. I don’t hear anybody asking for a turn

to speak, and I think Miguel, are we ready to pass to another

topic?

MIGUEL ROLON: Yes, and Michelle is.

MICHELLE DUVAL: Okay. Now we’re moving on to the management and

operational issues. I will just go ahead and run through these

again, for anybody who might just be on the phone, so that you can

hear them again.

The first one is accurate and timely commercial and recreational

catch data, and so mandatory reporting for all sectors.

Enforcement of existing regulations, fisher involvement in data

collection, regulatory consistency, and so this is federal and

territorial regulatory consistency, where such compatibility is

feasible.

Clear management objectives, bycatch and regulatory discards, gear

limits, cost effective data collection technology, balancing

commercial and recreational concerns, incorporation of climate

change into management, federal permit program, territorial

licensing requirements. For example, consider recreational

licensing requirement to improve reporting. That’s it.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much. Carlos Farchette.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have Number 1 is

accurate and timely commercial and recreational catch data. Next,

I have regulatory consistency, federal and territorial, where such

compatibility is feasible. Number 3 is enforcement of existing

regulations. Number 4 is balancing commercial and recreational

concerns. Number 5 is territorial licensing requirements.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Carlos. Vanessa.

VANESSA RAMIREZ: Thank you, Marcos. Accurate and timely

commercial and recreational catch data, regulatory consistency in

federal and territorial, territorial licensing requirements,

and recreational concerns.

MIGUEL ROLON: That was four. Can you repeat it again?

VANESSA RAMIREZ: I have accurate and timely commercial and

recreational catch data, regulatory consistency, territorial

license requirements, balancing commercial and recreational

concerns, federal permit program.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Vanessa. The next one in line is Tony

Blanchard.

TONY BLANCHARD: What I have is the accurate and timely commercial

and rec data, the enforcement of the existing regulations, the

balancing of the commercial and the rec concerns, the gear limits,

and to the end of the list is incorporating climate change into

management.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Tony. We have DNR. Ricardo.

RICARDO LOPEZ: If it’s my turn, Number 1 is enforcement of

existing regulations. Number 2 is balancing commercial and

recreational concerns. That takes me to territorial licensing as

Number 3. Accurate and timely commercial and recreational catch

data is Number 4.

MARCOS HANKE:

5?

RICARDO LOPEZ: It will be climate change, incorporation of climate

change.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you. Nicole and the Virgin Islands.

NICOLE ANGELI: Thank you. Fisher involvement in data collection,

territorial licensing requirements,

and recreational concerns, and accurate and

and recreational catch data.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Nicole. Roy Crabtree.

ROY CRABTREE: Okay. I had the accurate and timely commercial and

recreational catch data as Number 1. Regulatory consistency,

federal and territorial, is Number 2. The federal permit program 1 is Number 3. Territorial licensing and collection of bycatch data

and enforcement of existing regulations.

MARCOS HANKE: Okay. Thank you very much. I have accurate and

timely data, enforcement, regulatory consistency, federal permit,

and balancing commercial and recreational sectors.

MIGUEL ROLON: Thank you, Marcos.

MARCOS HANKE: Michelle, we’re ready to go to another topic, unless

anybody on the group wants to make a comment before we move on.

Okay. Next topic, Michelle.

MICHELLE DUVAL: Okay. The next topic is communication and

outreach, and so this one is a little bit different. All of these

issues are important, and the frequency of communication and having

alerts and reminders of scoping meetings and council meetings and

advisory panel meetings, and the variety of tools that are used in

communication. Then educational resources, and all of these are

important topics.

What we’re really looking for here is are there things that we are

missing, or do you have input on how frequently the council should

be communicating with fishers or with other stakeholders or with

the general public? Do you have any input on the variety of tools

that should be used in communication and which tools are

preferable? Are there tools that we’re missing, such as radio or

newspapers?

Are there different types of educational resources that the council

That it would be helpful for the council to either develop or

reach out to other partners to provide links to that, and are there

other ways to improve general public awareness of fisheries issues?

Are there other groups that the council should be expanding its

communication to? Are there certain topics that would be ideal

for in-person outreach workshops? Do you have suggestions for how

to improve the clarity and simplicity of presentations?

In terms of expanding the role of the fishery liaisons, beyond

participation on the O&E AP, are there different things that the

liaisons could do to help increase public understanding of

fisheries issues? We’re really looking We’re not necessarily

looking for top priorities, because these are all important, but

we’re looking for additional things that the council should be

focusing on, in terms of these different topics.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you. I have one comment that I’m going to do

at the end. Carlos Farchette.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do have a comment,

when it comes to the section of improving general public awareness

of fisheries issues and expanding the role of the liaisons. I

want to make it perfectly clear that I’m only speaking for the St.

Croix commercial sector, or the St. Croix sector, and I believe

that workshops for the general public can be done in a meeting

room, when it comes to the recreational user, or just the general

public.

However, when it comes to the commercial fishing sector, commercial

fishermen really don’t like to take the time to go out and meet at

hotels or meeting rooms, and I think it would be more successful

if the liaison and persons like the Fish and Wildlife staff, or

even enforcement officers, because I always believe in education

first and enforcement after, and I think that that type of outreach

should be done at the sites where the fishermen sell their produce.

We need to be able to stop by those guys where they’re selling, in

the afternoon, around It’s guaranteed for one o’clock, and we

could have a chat with them. I do that quite often, and I think

I get to the fishermen a lot better than trying to get them into

a meeting room. That has never been very successful. That’s my

comment.

MARCOS HANKE: Very valuable point. Thank you very much, Carlos.

Do you have anything else, Carlos, before I move on?

CARLOS FARCHETTE: No, and that would be it. I just believe that

reaching out to those guys where they’re at in the street is better

than trying to get them in a meeting room.

MARCOS HANKE: Or maybe creating some tools for you to distribute

or give to them as education materials that are appropriate for

what you’re saying. Anyway, we will keep going.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: I agree with you, Mr. Chair, but they need to

explain whatever they’re going to be handing to them, and just

don’t come by and hand it to them and say to take a look at this.

Have a chat.

MARCOS HANKE: I agree. Vanessa.

VANESSA RAMIREZ: Thank you, Marcos. Well, my comments are going

to be practically on the resource. As Carlos says, we need to

start practically giving that resource directly to especially the

commercial fishermen, because they usually don’t like to be, as he

says, in these meetings or these things that take a long time, and

so we should start with practically putting, or using, those tools

that we already have, like the ones that they like to use, like

Facebook or YouTube, just to make them more conscious about the

things that are happening. Also, we need to improve our public

awareness, so that (Part of Ms. Ramirez’s comment is not audible

on the recording.)

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Vanessa.

MIGUEL ROLON: Marcos, before they go, on behalf of a couple of

fishermen that we discussed these issues with, and among them were

Julian and Ruth and Tony that are here, the improving general

public awareness of fishery issues, we would like to emphasize

fisheries such as island-based FMPs and marine reserves. We would

like to make sure that the strategic plan will include those two

issues as top priorities.

As Michelle said, this is not prioritizing this list, but it’s

just to make it clear. The other thing is that they have found

that the viability of tools used in communication It used to be

newsletters and paper, and it used to be radio, and now the top

one, according to Julian and Tony and Ruth, is the social networks,

and so we are improving our social network capacity, and this will

be also included in the five-year strategic plan. Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, and I believe that you have Julian who would like to

speak.

MARCOS HANKE: Julian Magras, a follow-up.

JULIAN MAGRAS: Good morning, everyone. Just to follow-up a little

bit on what Miguel just said, yes, the social network seems to

reach out a lot more to the local fishers, and especially the

younger ones, and not only that, but people are following what’s

going on, and the message is getting back out to a lot of the

fishers, but I wanted to touch a little bit on the importance,

number one, as Miguel said, of including the information on the

seasonal closures and actually looking at the Grammanik Bank and

the MCD, to ensure that we can actually see what’s going on in

those areas. That is very, very important that that’s included.

Also, to touch on what Carlos said earlier, with using the

liaisons, I think that’s a very good idea, to use the liaisons to

go out to the different markets and speak to the fishers, but I

think what is more important is that person should not go to the

markets by themselves.

They should have either a representative from the Outreach &

Education Committee with them or someone from the District Advisory

Panels, due to the fact that fishers know that we are involved in

all of these meetings, and we are the ones with most of the

information, because the liaison representatives do not get on

these other meetings to understand what’s actually taking place,

and so them carrying the information to the fishers They don’t

have it, but I think using them to go to the markets is a very

good idea, but you need to have someone that actually has the

information from the different meetings, the SSC and the District

Advisory Panel and the Outreach & Education Committee, all of these

different groups. Use someone to go with that individual to the

markets. Thank you.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Julian. Tony Blanchard.

TONY BLANCHARD: Just to back what Julian and Carlos said, I

believe that the liaison is supposed to be more involved in this,

and the They know what they’re talking about to bring the

information and to be clear on what they’re bringing to the people

that they are bringing it to.

Just like Carlos said, I don’t believe that handing them a pamphlet

and going the other way is going to cut it, and I do believe, like

Mr. Magras said, that we need somebody from one of those committees

to be with that individual to basically be as a backup, but, in my

opinion, the liaison’s job is to bring forward that information,

to be like a translator, and so I think they should be up-to-speed

with what is going on themselves.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Tony. Miguel, did you want to follow-

up on something?

MIGUEL ROLON: Just one point, and I was talking to Julian and

other people in the past, and Tony, and we followed the

recommendations that they made, and so, on this topic, we are going

to have a meeting on October 7, and the morning will be dedicated

to the DAP St. Thomas, and hopefully the officials from the local

government will attend, to talk about the model for the ecosystem,

the ecosystem model.

Then, in the afternoon, we will have a meeting with the liaison

officers, all of them, and we will have all the DAP members, chairs

and members, and the O&E AP, just to follow exactly what Julian is

addressing, and the others, which is to enhance the role of the

liaison officer, to explain what the liaison officer is supposed

to do, and also to offer them tips on how to improve their

communication.

I believe what Julian mentioned has been very important in the

past, and, for example, in the case of Puerto Rico, the liaison

officer is also the port agent, and so we have a combination of

two responsibilities in one, but, in the Virgin Islands, the two

liaison officers will be at the meeting on October 7.

In addition, we will have a presentation by Dr. Alida Ortiz on

communication strategies and so forth, and we will have Yasmin

from the Pew Charitable Trusts giving a presentation of the

outreach and education model that they have in their organization.

I believe that this discussion is really tied to the one that we

are going to have on October 7, following the recommendation of

several people.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Miguel. Carlos Farchette.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to mention

that I wholeheartedly agree with the comments from Julian and Tony

Blanchard. It’s important to have whether it be a DAP member or

an FAC member or a Fish and Wildlife staff accompanying that

liaison when they go to speak to the fishermen.

Those people know the fishermen a lot more, and the liaisons are

new to this, and it’s going to take a while for them to be brought

up to speed. Training is not going to happen in just one day, and

it’s going to take a little while and be a little repetitive, but

I just wanted to make that comment, that I do agree that somebody

needs to accompany them, and they will feel a lot more comfortable

and get to know the fishermen a lot better. Thank you.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Carlos. We have DNR Puerto Rico next in

line. I am sorry, Ricardo. Tony Blanchard already spoke on the

follow-up, but I don’t know if you want to say anything else, Tony.

TONY BLANCHARD: No, and I’m good for now, Marcos.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you. Ricardo, DNR Puerto Rico.

RICARDO LOPEZ: As he explained, it’s different in Puerto Rico.

Our two liaisons, the last one and the present one, they are doing

very well with the fishermen, and they can manage everything with

the fishermen, and they have a good standing with the fishermen,

and so I guess that the difference in the USVI will be taken care

of, as they say, by the person from DPNR and Fish and Wildlife,

and so I agree with them that we need to manage that, and that’s

all I have to say.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you. Nicole.

NICOLE ANGELI: Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to have

fishery liaisons. I think that we’ve seen great work from them in

identifying program needs, and, when we do expand communications,

we would do that, and so I just wanted that to be on the record,

that we would work very closely with the FACs. They are currently

on the FACs, and they will be meeting fishers and working within

the groups. Are we doing the top five as well?

MARCOS HANKE: No, and just comments about the topics that are on

the screen.

NICOLE ANGELI: That was all I had for that.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Nicole. Roy Crabtree, and I have Ed

Schuster for a comment.

JACK MCGOVERN: Roy had to step away, and Maria might have a couple

of comments, but a couple of things that I think is important has

to do with the educational resources, and MREP in the Caribbean I

think is really important in educating the fishers, and another

thing on here that I think is important is the clarity and

simplicity of presentations. As Michelle said, there’s a lot of

jargon, and I think it’s important to make presentations easier to

understand that go to the council, and Maria might have a couple

of things as well to say.

MARCOS HANKE: Maria Lopez.

MARIA LOPEZ: Good morning. I agree with Jack, and I would also

like to extend our support for the role of the fishery liaisons.

We believe that that role is very, very important, and we also

think that, whenever possible, those regular in-person outreach

workshops are really, really important, and this is also what MREP

comes to. I know that, right now, this is not possible, but, once

we’re able to resume life as we knew it, I think this is something

that we can definitely support and continue doing. Thank you.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Maria. A follow-up by I have here

Edward Schuster.

EDWARD SCHUSTER: Good morning. I just wanted to make a comment

about the liaison, and it’s a very good gesture that we’re coming

forward to. What I have experienced in the past in these meetings

with fishers that attend the meeting is they are afraid of the

mic, that it’s going to eat them up or something, and they don’t

want to ask questions, and they feel like they get embarrassed by

asking a question.

With what Julian said, having the liaison person go to these

fishers on a one-to-one basis, and it doesn’t have to be the

chairman, but it would have to be somebody that is very

knowledgeable about what’s going on from the DAP section to attend,

or assist, or accompany, the liaison person to go to the fishers

and familiarize them with the fishermen, to get the message across,

because, without their involvement If we’re not there We

need to join that bridge back that has been broken, and that’s my

comment.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much, Ed. We have now my comments,

and I have experience with communicating with a group of fishermen

using WhatsApp, and a lot of the fishing associations and fishing

groups have their own group of WhatsApp, and that is used like a

newspaper, and you can program the WhatsApp not to be interactive,

and just to post information, and people have very quick access.

My point is that fishermen, in Puerto Rico at least, they use the

WhatsApp app a lot, and anyway that we can include the WhatsApp

communication, and I think it’s something that we can add, and

that’s the only comment that I have. We are ready to go to the

next topic, Michelle.

MICHELLE DUVAL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and so the next part is

really I’m going to just review the feedback that we received from

the DAPs on each of these four theme areas, and so I’m going to go

through that and then turn to each of the DAP chairs for any

additional input or comments that they want to make about the

discussion that they all had.

I will just remind folks that, again, one of our next steps, next

week, is to launch an online comment form, and we will also have

paper versions of this form, if people If anybody sitting around

the table knows of other stakeholders who would like to provide

their thoughts on the topics under these four themes and hasn’t

had the chance to do so.

We’ve gone through council input and discussion, and I do just

ask, if folks have any additional comments, if they can get them

in to me by the end of October, that would be great, and so that

will give me a month to incorporate that into the report that I

will present to you in December.

Now I just want to run through the DAP and the O&E AP input, and

so we’re going to start with St. Thomas/St. John, and so what you

see up here on the screen, under resource health, these were just

the These were just the topics that rose to the top as kind of

the top five, and the St. Thomas/St. John DAP was the first DAP to

go through this approach, and so I really want to thank Julian for

his leadership, and all of the members of the St. Thomas/St. John

DAP, because they made a lot of great contributions to the list of

topics, to make them clear for the other DAPs when they went

through this, and so this is where there was a lot of conversation

about the overlap in some of these topics with regard to resource

health and the relationship to enforcement and how pollution

encompasses a lot of different things.

There were several folks on the DAP who commented that they would

like to see climate change addressed in some capacity, and that

also was a component under management and operational issues. I

think another Just to read these off, habitat loss and

destruction and creation and rehabilitation, lack of biological or

ecosystem information, erosion and sedimentation, endorsement, and

coastal development were sort of the priority areas that came out

under resource health.

For social, cultural, and economic concerns, the closed seasons

and stock assessments for the impacted species and evaluation of

those closures was very popular. Inadequate enforcement, and then

infrastructure needs, the landing and market sites, and there was

a lot of conversation about how the landing sites and market sites

are not the same thing, as well as illegal, unlicensed commercial

fishers and lack of social and economic data.

Then, just for the management and operational issues, having the

accurate and timely commercial and recreational catch information,

and there was some discussion of having mandatory reporting for

everyone or a discussion about how reporting is voluntary, and,

even though we ask for things, sometimes there is a lack of

timeliness in the reporting of data. Enforcement of existing

regulations, having fishers involved in data collection, a focus

on territorial licensing requirements, and, for example, this was

where it was raised for having a requirement for recreational

reporting, in order to improve the catch data, and then, finally,

incorporation of climate change into management.

Then, under communication and outreach, and you’ve heard some

additional feedback from Julian on this, but, again, all topics

were important, and I think everyone agreed that more education

and outreach was needed. This DAP really discussed significantly

expanding the role of the fishery liaisons, as well as talking

about the clarity and simplicity of presentations and that

fishermen, fishers, really would like to understand what these

things mean, but seeing an equation on a screen really does not

help in that regard, and so it’s important not just for the fishers

but also for the public and tourists to understand these issues,

There was a lot of discussion about how the tools used for

communication and outreach are generational, and you all just spoke

about this a little bit earlier, the expansion of social media

versus the daily news or the radio that older generations still

prefer, like the paper, the daily news, or the radio, whereas the

younger generation relies more on social media.

Having meeting reminders was a great thing, and Julian described

how he reminds his members of an upcoming DAP meeting, using text

messaging or WhatsApp, and he creates a group, and he makes sure

to follow-up, so that everybody knows when a meeting is coming up.

We also discussed having a newsletter or a summary of council

meetings that could be distributed or get back to the fishers, and

Miguel might want to make a few comments about this.

He suggested preparing a quarterly newsletter and reading this out

to fishers, where we could set up like a webinar to communicate to

fishers what’s happened after the meeting, and then, finally, there

was some discussion of youth outreach, just to try to build the

next generation and get folks interested in fishing. Mr. Chairman,

I just want to turn to Julian Magras, to just ask him to just

provide any additional input from the DAP discussion. Thank you.

MARCOS HANKE: Julian.

JULIAN MAGRAS: I thought it was a very good meeting, and I thought

the discussion went well, and the members were all pleased with

the topics that were brought forward. I think how this was carried

out was excellent, and I was glad to see that the council did the

same thing this morning and let the members pick their five topics,

because everyone has their own opinion and looks at different

topics, and I think it was done the right way, and I think the

outcome, once everything is combined together, should be great.

A lot of different stuff stands out, and you’ve got the data that

stands out, and enforcement stands out, and seasonal closures stand

out, and so I’m looking forward to the final draft of this work

that we are doing, to ensure that everyone’s issues, or concerns,

is captured, and hopefully, during the five-year plan, everything

will be accomplished. Thank you.

MARCOS HANKE: Michelle.

MICHELLE DUVAL: Thank you, and thank you, Julian. I really

appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Now we’re going to

move on to the St. Croix District Advisory Panel, and so they had

a lot of similar comments as the St. Thomas/St. John DAP, with 1 regard to how a lot of these resource health topics overlap, and,

in particular, how things like erosion and sedimentation They

end up impacting habitat loss, and there was some discussion of

things like fish aggregating devices, to take pressure off of

inshore habitats, as part of habitat creation, and also discussion

of how illegal fishing and overfishing are all related to

enforcement, and that enforcement, in some ways, could almost be

like the number-one problem for everything, just given that there

are often regulations on the books for these issues.

For resource health, the top-five topics that came out were habitat

loss and destruction and creation and rehabilitation. Then

enforcement, illegal fishing, erosion and sedimentation, climate

change. I will say that pollution was sort of a close runner-up.

Then, with regard to the social, cultural, and economic concerns,

the topics that came forward were illegal and unlicensed commercial

fishers, the closed seasons and stock assessments for the species

that are impacted by those closed seasons and evaluation of the

area and season closures, to see how they’re working. The lack of

social and economic data, recreational and commercial user

conflicts, and inadequate enforcement.

I think there was definitely some additional conversation about

the lack of enforcement and the availability of enforcement and is

enforcement there, and there was also some conversation of updating

the commercial fisheries licensing program and trying to

streamline renewal of licenses, sharing of data with fishers, and

ensuring that there’s like a Well, I will go to the next slide

for that, but I’m trying to think. I’m just looking through my

notes, to make sure I’m not missing some of the other comments.

Now on to management and operational issues, and the accurate and

timely commercial and recreational catch data, enforcement of

existing regulations, fishermen involvement in data collection,

territorial licensing requirements and streamlining those

requirements, updating that program, and balancing commercial and

recreational concerns. Those were sort of the top-five issues

that came forward.

As I have noted before, I think one of the things about fisher

involvement in data collection is not only involving the fishers,

but also sharing that information, so that fishers and scientists

can understand one another.

Communication and outreach was a very similar conversation as to

the St. Thomas/St. John DAP. Again, everyone agreed that these

were all really important topics and that any additional outreach

and education that could be conducted is going to be helpful.

There was quite a bit of conversation about the clarity and

simplicity of presentations and how that is very important for

fishers and the general public, just as the St. Thomas/St. John

DAP did, and, again, the generational use of tools and the same

agreement that the younger generation is gravitating towards the

use of social media, whereas the older generation still prefers

newspapers and hard-copy type of information.

The frequency of communication was also something that came up,

that, the more frequent we can make our communication, or the

council can make its communication, the more people are going to

get involved, and there was a lot of support for the in-person

outreach workshops, and, obviously, that’s a little bit

challenging right now, but there was a lot of support for the idea

of actually going to where the fishers are and helping them to

understand specific issues.

Then, finally, there was discussion of outreach to some of these

non-traditional groups, like divers, and even potentially youth

organizations and things like podcasts that could also be used to

reach out to non-traditional groups. I am checking my notes to

see if there is any other things that I wanted to flag for you

all, but I am going to turn things over to the DAP Chair, Edward

Schuster, to contribute to the discussion. Thank you.

EDWARD SCHUSTER: This was very interesting, and the whole group

came to a level of priorities with this. The resource health, if

you don’t have a healthy habitat for juveniles and the whole

recruitment, our fishery goes down. Enforcement and illegal

fishing, and illegal fishers don’t abide by regulations, and then

it all works in hand with erosion and sedimentation, and also

climate change and hurricanes. They destroy our habitats.

The social and cultural and the economic concerns, and illegal and

unlicensed commercial fishers, those are the ones that are just

there for reaping everything that they can get for their own

benefit, and they are not concerned about the resources and to

restock the species in a sustainable way.

Closed seasons, stock assessments for impacted species, that was

one of the concerns, major concerns, throughout the group. If you

don’t obey the closed seasons, or even go in to evaluate them,

you’re To really see what’s there and what’s not working, and

maybe it needs to be expanded or shortened or whatever, or even

moved to a different location, and maybe that location has been

abandoned by the species, for whatever reason, and so you need to

go back and reassess them whatever, every five years or three years

or whatever.

The lack of social and economic data, if it’s not there, you don’t

know where we’re going in the fisheries. The recreational and

commercial user conflicts, that has always been a problem.

Recreational users go out and they catch what they don’t need, or

what they can’t consume, and then they sell it. It comes into the

market, and, the commercial fishers, they have that uphill battle,

constantly.

Then, as everything else, you can make rules and regulations until

your ears are falling off, but, if there’s nobody there to enforce

these regulations, people are going to break rules all the time.

Under management and operational issues, due to the fact that we

have ACLs, it’s always good to know exactly where we are, in terms

of the harvesting level. Accurate and timely commercial and

recreational catch data, that’s needed, and, if we can have that,

along with the local agencies, to validate what the fishers are

catching, that would be perfect, because the fishers don’t have it

at-sea, but, if you have that e-reporting form, maybe some of them

might use it, and that might help to have adequate data, but, if

you can have the local agencies to validate the forms that are

being filled out by the fishers, and that same data is being port

sampled, and you would actually have more of an accurate data.

Enforcement of existing regulations, again, the same thing. You

need that constant policing there of the lawbreakers. Fisher

involvement in the data collection, that’s needed major. That

bridge has been broken, or semi-broken, in some instances, but you

need to have that gap rebuilt.

Territorial licensing requirements, that’s a need. There’s a

moratorium right now, but we’re trying to bring that back within

our local advisory panel, but I am seeing commercial and

recreational concerns, and the balance is needed, so everybody has

a fair share, and that’s it, in a nutshell.

Communication and outreach, all topics are important, and more

education and outreach is needed, and that’s for sure, because the

attendees will know, but the non-attendees won’t know, and some of

the new regulations, or the new ideas coming forward, especially

now that we’re going to island-based fishery management, and we

need this outreach, so that they can be aware of the change and

the reason for the change. Once this is brought forward, I think

you will have more fishers in compliance than out of compliance.

The clarity and simplicity of the presentations, I mentioned that

before, and some of the fishers feel like the mic is going to eat

them up, or they’re going to be laughed at in front of the large

crowd that is there, and they don’t want to participate so much

into it and not to be a laughingstock, and so, when you come out

of these meetings, you see that the small group huddles around the

people that are more common to attend these meetings, and it could

be Carlos, or it could be Julian, or it could be Tony, or myself,

anybody, and then they will just huddle in a group, and then they

go in a one-on-one, to try and understand or simplify what has

been told, in a nutshell.

A generalization of tools and the social media, you know, we live

in a modern world. You know, some fishers still pick up the

newspaper, but most of us go by text or email and so forth, and

just to have the frequent communication and the liaison person,

and we’ve had that come into play.

In-person workshops, again, the liaison thing, and outreach to

non-traditional groups, again, the liaison, along with DAP

members, a DAP member, or the chair of the DAP, somebody that is

really comfortable with assisting the liaison person or who attends

these meetings regular, and that will be a perfect match-up with

the liaison person. That’s the end of those bullets there.

MICHELLE DUVAL: Thank you, Edward. I really appreciate you adding

to this. Mr. Chairman, I’m just going to move on to the Puerto

Rico DAP. The Puerto Rico DAP was the last group to go through

this process, and so the top five that came out for priorities

under resource health included pollution, erosion and

sedimentation, coastal development, natural disasters, and then

enforcement and habitat loss and destruction and construction and

rehabilitation. Those two items really came up like exactly the

same, and so that’s why you see them lumped there.

Social, cultural, and economic concerns, the lack of social and

economic data, inadequate enforcement, infrastructure needs, and

so they agreed with the need for landing and market sites, and

addressing illegal and unlicensed commercial fishers, and the

closed seasons and stock assessments for the impacted species and

the evaluation of those closures were all very important things

that the Puerto Rico DAP members wanted to see or thought that the

council should focus on.

Then, moving on to the management and operational issues, and so

this included enforcement of existing regulations, accurate and

timely commercial and recreational catch data, having fishers

involved in data collection, and having clear management

objectives and cost-effective data collection technology.

Then, finally, under communication and outreach, again, these were

all topics that were important, that more was needed, that all

tools, paper and social media and everything, are equally

important, but it just depends on the group of people that you’re

trying to communicate to, that there’s a need for a clear and

simple explanation of the agency rules.

You know, there’s a lot of different agencies involved in the

fisheries management process, and it’s hard for people to

understand, when we’re using acronyms and terminology that is

difficult to understand.

Then improving general public awareness of fisheries issues was

important, and that this also needs to include youth and outreach

to the younger generation, and, similar to the other DAPs, the

liaison roles are extremely important to helping fishers

understand this. We did have some conversation about the documents

and management plans being written officially in English and

providing translations for Puerto Rico and the USVI and how to

maybe How to improve that process, by working with the folks at

NOAA Fisheries.

We talked about some of the text message bulletins that NOAA sends,

so that you can sign-up to receive text message bulletins from the

National Marine Fisheries Service, letting you know when like a

seasonal closure is going to come underway, and we also talked a

little bit about use of an app called Fish Rules, and this is

something that NOAA Fisheries has worked with the app developer

on, and so, all up and down I think the east coast, Fish Rules is

a great app that tells you what the regulations are, no matter

where you are.

There were a couple other things under management that I just

wanted to highlight, that having There was also a conversation

about having the clear management objectives, that sometimes the

language that is used in writing the management objectives is

difficult for people to understand, and so that makes it really

difficult for fishers to understand and I guess get onboard with

the reasons for the management actions, and so it’s really

important to have that clear language.

Then we did talk a little bit about data technology systems and

trying to That there needs to be some communication efforts to

explain why this is so important, and so I think, once fishers can

understand the importance of data, then they will be more likely

to comply with providing it in an accurate and timely manner.

We did also have some conversation about the topic of illegal and

unlicensed fishers and how this really goes hand-in-hand with a

lack of new entrants into the fishery, and that was really

something that came up under the social, economic, and cultural

concerns, and that, really, I think there was Nelson can talk

a little bit more about this, but there used to be, I think, a

young fishers school, and it was apparently going really well, but

there was some issues with allowing women to participate, and so

there was some conversation surrounding that and about the

council’s efforts to highlight women fishers participating in the

fishery and that that kind of aligned with also bringing

Educating the younger generation, to help raise interest in

participating in the fishery in the future. Mr. Chairman, I’m

just going to go to Nelson, to see if Nelson has anything that he

would like to add as well.

NELSON CRESPO: Good morning, everyone. Regarding the resource

health, in the case of Puerto Rico, the pollution and erosion and

sedimentation and the coastal development, in our opinion, was one

of the most important movement that we have against the resources

and the habitat, marine habitats.

The natural disasters, we have to deal with them, but, if we

control the first three topics, I guarantee you that the resources

are going to improve really, really good. The enforcement and

habitat loss and the distribution and construction and

rehabilitation is one of the main things that we need. We need

effective enforcement to protect the habitat loss. Without

enforcement, we are nothing, because all the agencies Every

construction we have, it’s They do whatever they want, because

we have no enforcement.

With the social and cultural and economic concerns, the lack of

social and economic data is one of our biggest problems, because

we have a bit problem with illegal fishermen, and they don’t report

their catches, and that affects the socioeconomics of the

commercial fishermen. We don’t know the real health of the

resources without that information. Again, with inadequate

enforcement, we cannot fix that issue with illegal fishers.

Regarding the infrastructure, we really, really need better boat

ramps and better access, safe access, to the sea, because, to this

moment, it’s very hard, especially in my area, to deal with the

weather conditions, and we have a small ramp, and it’s nightmare

MARCOS HANKE: Nelson.

every time we go out to sea, and, when we come back, we don’t know

how we’re going to find the weather conditions inshore, and

sometimes we have to navigate ten miles up the south, twelve miles

up to the south, to find access to develop our job.

It’s necessary to obtain the closed season stock assessments. We

don’t know the health of these, because, every time we implement

a management plan for one resource, or one fishery, that’s it, and

that’s the end. It’s very rare that we know how the resources are

improving or it has stayed the same or it’s getting worse, and we

need more assessments for the resources and fisheries.

Management and operational issues, enforcement is our nightmare,

and so the commercial fishermen, most of the time, are punished

with enforcement agencies, especially with the DNR Rangers, and

the recreational act like nothing. They don’t pay the same

attention that they do with the commercial fishers, and the

recreational fishers Everybody knows that a big percent of them

are selling their catches, affecting, again, the socioeconomics of

the fishermen.

We need to have accurate and timely commercial and recreational

data. That’s the key, one of the keys, to know the health of the

resources for better management. Involvement of fishers,

commercial and recreational, all fishermen, in the data collection

is going to improve that issue.

We need to have clear management objectives, especially we need to

speak the same language, and sometimes one regulation is coming

up, and, depending on what you think it is, you develop your job,

but, in reality, maybe I’m wrong, and maybe it’s not okay, and

there is constant confusion regarding how to work with management.

The cost-effective data collection technology, for me, I would

start out with electronic reporting, and that’s one of the best

things that has happened this year, and everybody is happy, and I

hope that the data That the DNR Lab starts receiving the data

on time and improving the data collection.

In communication and outreach, like all the guys said, all of them

are important. I understand that the education, especially to the

fishermen, is the key to the benefits of the fishermen and the

resources. We need to use the most effective access to develop

the information, and I think the social media is the key.

A group of fishermen preferred to have like paper, to put it in

the fishermen’s villages, so that the fishermen that go like to

use the computer can stop and read everything and understand what’s

going on, and, again, we need to have We need to speak the same

language, every time.

I talked with one enforcement agency, and they have one opinion of

how to enforce. If we talk to another, they have another opinion,

and there is constant confusion. Then, if they don’t know how to

enforce, or how to develop the management For the management of

our resources, then we are not going nowhere.

We need to bring, especially in Puerto Rico, young blood to the

fishery. The age of the fishermen is more than forty years, and

we’re getting old, and the upcoming guys The amount of upcoming

guys are really old, really, really old. We need to motivate those

guys. Maybe if we attack the issue of illegal fishermen, we can

collect a big group of young blood and help them to get their

papers someday for the benefit of all of our fisheries.

The liaison roles are very important, and, really, I trust those

guys, and Wilson is very accessible. Every time we are confused,

or every time we have a need, he is open to give us a hand, and

they are doing a great job, and I support them 100 percent. That’s

all we’ve got. Thank you, guys.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Nelson. Michelle.

MICHELLE DUVAL: Yes, Mr. Chairman, and so I did do one more thing,

just to show you guys I just want to review what the Outreach

& Education Advisory Panel did, really quickly, and so the O&E AP

saw the communication and outreach priorities that you all

reviewed, and we asked them to rank which ones that they thought

were the most important and to provide any additional input on

each of these different topics.

The one that came out on top was really improving general public

awareness of fisheries issues, and that the council has multiple

audiences, and each audience has varying levels of awareness, and

so you have school students, supermarket owners, farmers,

restaurants, et cetera, and so each one of these audiences has

different levels of awareness and different communication needs,

and one of the things that did come forward is that more attention

is needed on recreational fishers and improving their awareness of

these issues.

The next topic that came out, sort of a tie between having regular

in-person outreach workshops and ensuring that the frequency of

communications, through alerts and reminders is high, and so the

council has actually been working a lot on the frequency of

communication, through its social media platforms, and the comment

was made that more frequent alerts, or reminders, means that more

people will be involved in the process.

The more frequent communication means that people have become more

aware of it, and then, when they’re more aware, they might decide

to participate, and so, again, the social media platforms have

really improved the council’s communication, and increased it,

particularly with younger generations, but there’s still no

substitute for that in-person contact, and it’s really important,

in order for the council to sort of get out on the street to

improve public understanding, and that the existing in-person

efforts, through PEPCO and MREP, have been incredibly successful,

and you’ve heard support for that, but we do need some workshops

focused on reaching recreational fishers.

Then the clarity and simplicity of presentations was next, and

you’ve heard a lot about that. The fishers and the general public

need clear, simple explanations, without complex terminology, and

some of the social media, and even printed materials and workshops,

can be tools to explain some difficult concepts, and then this was

followed by a variety of communication tools, and, finally,

educational resources, and so a greater variety of tools means

that more people will be involved in the process, and that’s what

we’re shooting for, and so, even though paper and newspaper are

still preferred resources, social media is becoming increasingly

important.

We need to make sure that the council’s website is useful and

attractive to the general public, and so, even though a lot of

people use social media, there are still other folks who continue

to use organization websites to receive information.

Then development of tools is really a constant process of

identifying new and varied audiences and what their needs are, and

so your development of tools will never really stop, and it’s

always going to be evolving with your audience, and then, finally,

with regard to educational resources, the council has put

significant investment into this, and it’s been a constant process

of developing educational resources to meet audience needs, and

ensuring that these are simple and understandable is important.

One of the comments was that we really need something simple and

understandable that explains stock assessment and science for our

constituents.

Mr. Chairman, I don’t know if Alida would like to comment on this,

or add anything to this. The way we conducted this with the O&E

AP was that we just reviewed the list of initial outreach topics,

and this was before the DAPs had their meetings, and then Dr. Alida

Ortiz asked the O&E AP members to rate which ones that they thought

were the most important and then provide any additional

suggestions, and so that’s where this was generated. Thank you.

ALIDA ORTIZ: Yes, I’m here, Michelle.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Michelle. Alida, it’s your turn now,

and, after your turn, Richard wanted to speak.

ALIDA ORTIZ: Okay. Thank you so much, Michelle. That’s a great

job, really a great job, that we can look at the importance of

outreach and education and communication and the fact that all the

aspects that you presented to us to analyze go to the very, very

wide audience, and it is not just fishers or fish markets, but it

is people from the mountains to the sea, people that consume fish,

that sell fish, that work in the protected areas, and they are all

important.

All the comments that came in your presentation regarding outreach

and education to me are the same things that we have been

discussing for a long, long, long time, and that probably this is

the space and the time where we have a very comprehensive

communication and outreach that will go to all the audiences.

Thank you so much for the work.

MICHELLE DUVAL: Thank you, Alida.

MARCOS HANKE: Michelle, we have Richard Appeldoorn to make a

comment,

on the Puerto Rico report.

RICHARD APPELDOORN: It’s actually a comment on all the DAP

reports, and what I was seeing there was a lot of attention toward

enforcement, and I think it’s important to recognize that it was

not just fisheries enforcement that they were really referring to.

When you’re talking about coastal development and the impacts of

that, and erosion, et cetera, that’s enforcement of existing

regulations on land use and construction processes and things like

that, which are outside the realm of fisheries enforcement, yet

these do have a major impact on the health of our marine

environments.

In thinking about that, it’s not just focused on the fisheries

enforcement aspect to it, because there’s other aspects, in terms

of how construction is done, how land clearing is done, how

effluent is treated, et cetera, and those, as I said, are usually

outside the jurisdiction of fisheries enforcement. My other

comment was going to be if there was time for a break. Thank you.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much, and, Michelle, do you have

anything else, or can we go to a break?

MICHELLE DUVAL: I have just a couple of quick slides that will

take me two minutes to go through that just show the overlap, and

so this just shows like the overlap in those different resource

health categories between the different Between the DAPs, and

so you can just see that there is a significant amount of overlap

on resource health.

This is you see overlap on the social and cultural and economic

issues, and this is the overlap on some of those management and

operational issues among the three DAPs, and that’s it. I am done.

You can go to break.

MIGUEL ROLON: Marcos.

MARCOS HANKE: Go ahead, Miguel.

MIGUEL ROLON: Before the break, and I suggest that we can have a

ten-minute break, and then we have until twelve o’clock, and so,

if nobody objects, we can take the Other Business up. Then we can

have the afternoon dedicated to the second half of the meeting.

Just briefly, just to tell you how you did, from the exercise

today, the members had habitat loss and destruction and resource

health as your Number 1, followed by lack of biological and

ecosystem information, and then you have a tie for each of

enforcement, pollution, and illegal fishing. All of this will be

included in the report that Dr. Duval is preparing.

Social, economic, and cultural concerns, your Number 1 is the

closed seasons and assessment and evaluation, followed by a tie

with recreational and commercial user conflicts, and then, second,

you have a tie on enforcement and infrastructure needs. Then the

last one is illegal and unlicensed commercial fishers.

Management and operational issues, your Number 1 is accurate and

timely commercial and recreational catch data, followed by

balancing commercial and recreational concerns, and then we have

tie, a triple tie, with enforcement, regulatory consistency, and

territorial licensing. All of this will be included in Dr. Duval’s

report, and so that’s our suggestion, Mr. Chairman, is a ten-

minute break, and then we can go into the topics of Other Business,

if nobody objects.

MARCOS HANKE: Let’s go for a ten-minute break, as requested, and

then we will come back for a short session before lunch. See you

guys in ten minutes.

That will be 11:24.

MARCOS HANKE: Yes. At 11:24, we will be back.

(Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.)

MARCOS HANKE: Hello, everyone. It’s 11:28 a.m., and we are ready

to restart. We’re going to advance some Other Business items

before lunchtime. Miguel, do we want to inform about the 170th

Verbatim Transcription, and can you go on from there?

BUSINESS

MIGUEL ROLON: We just wanted to see if there is any comments to

approve the 170th minutes that were posted, and Diana sent it to

everybody, and so, at this time, we just wanted to know whether

there is any additional suggestions for changing the minutes, and

then we need a motion to approve the minutes as written.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: I did read the minutes for the 171, and so,

unless there are any corrections or additions, I am ready to move

to accept the verbatim minutes for the 171st CFMC Meeting.

second.

MIGUEL ROLON: Any objection and then motion approved, Marcos.

MARCOS HANKE: I have a point of clarification. We are talking

about the 170 minutes, correct, Carlos?

MIGUEL ROLON: The past minutes, yes.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Right. Sorry about that. 170, yes, because

we’re on 171 now.

MARCOS HANKE: Tony, are you clear that it’s the 170?

MARCOS HANKE: Okay. Thank you. Is there any opposition on this

motion? With no opposition, the motion carries. Next item,

Miguel.

MIGUEL ROLON: Okay. Diana sent the letter that Dr. Roy Crabtree

sent to Marcos Hanke with the good news that the island-based FMPs

have been approved, and remember that the next step will be for

the publication of the regulations that implement the island-based

FMPs. I don’t know if Maria still is with us, because they were

going to step out of the meeting for a while, if she wants to add

anything else.

MARIA LOPEZ: I’m here, Miguel.

MIGUEL ROLON: Okay. Maria, can you add the next steps, please,

once the island-based FMPs is approved?

MARIA LOPEZ: Yes. As Miguel said, NOAA Fisheries approved each

of the fishery management plans for the Exclusive Economic Zones

of Puerto Rico, St. Croix, St. Thomas/St. John. That was on

September 22, 2020, and the letter was sent from NOAA Fisheries to

the council dated on September 23, 2020 to inform about that.

The next step would be the publication of the proposed rule that

would implement each of these fishery management plans. Right

now, we are in the process of preparing that proposed rule, and we

don’t have a date yet to provide to you at this time for when that

will be available, but, once that is available, we will communicate

that to the council.

The proposed rule will have a comment period of thirty days, and

then, after that, any comments that were received on the notice of

availability of the amendments that was published earlier and on

the proposed rule Those will be addressed in the final rule,

and so that’s where we are right now, and, again, we want to thank

all of you for the input and hard work throughout this process.

This has been a process that has spanned many years, and we are

really, really thankful for everything that you have contributed

to this, and we are very close to the end right now. Thanks.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Maria, and thank you to the whole

council, the staff and everybody involved, and this I think is a

step in the right direction. Miguel.

MIGUEL ROLON: I echo the thank you, and, especially, I want to

mention Graciela from our staff, and Maria’s staff, and Sarah, and

Bill Arnold, the fellow that retired, and he was instrumental in

putting all this together, with the assistance and blessing of Roy

Crabtree and Jack and the other people from the Regional Office,

and the Southeast Fisheries Science Center, Clay Porch and the 1 other members, and I cannot overemphasize the importance of having

the DAP members all the way from the beginning, and the SSC, and

so now the work starts for each one of the areas.

We need to go into the amendments that you have been discussing

before, and it is important that we start working with those, and

Maria Lopez mentioned, in a previous meeting, that the amendments

that we need for each one of the areas should be addressed as soon

as possible.

Graciela has also reminded us that there is a person always in the

back helping us with this, to make sure that we are legal all the

way, and we would like to thank Jocelyn D’Ambrosio. She has been

instrumental in all of this, having all these island-based FMPs in

place. She’s a quiet lady, but she’s really a hell of a lawyer,

and it’s good to have her on your side, and so, for that, we are

really grateful.

The next steps, as Maria mentioned, are the regulations, but we

would like to encourage council members and DAP members to think

about your area and think about 2021 and those items that you would

like the council to address in each one of those island-based FMPs.

Carlos Farchette has brought some to our attention, and Julian,

and so forth. That is all we have for the island-based FMPs so

far, Mr. Chairman.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you. I have Carlos on the line to speak, and

I just want to reiterate my gratitude to Jocelyn D’Ambrosio about

her job, and, like Miguel says, she’s always available to all the

stakeholders and all the participants, being very precise and

clear, and we really appreciate her support. Carlos.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Let me see how I can

word this. Maybe not to be discussed now, but in the future, when

the IBFMPs are finally in place and implemented, and I am wondering

whether, since we are only going to be speaking specifically for

each island, does the structure of the membership remain the same,

because, presently, I’m a recreational fisherman, and St. Thomas

has a commercial fisherman representing, and so does that remain

the same, or does each island then need a commercial fishery

representative, and a recreational, or what? I don’t know if this

is the time for this, or maybe we can discuss this in another

council meeting.

MIGUEL ROLON: I can clarify that for you, and it’s easy. In order

to do that, you need to have an amendment of the Magnuson-Stevens

Act, and that has been discussed before, and that isn’t going to

happen in the near future, and so what we need to do is to make

sure that members of the two sectors participate at every

discussion that we have, and we can invite For example, you are

recreational, and we should be able to invite a commercial fishing

representative to be at meetings where we discuss the island-based

FMP of St. Croix. The same with the U.S. Virgin Islands, St.

Thomas/St. John, and, of course, Puerto Rico.

The Magnuson-Stevens Act actually is This is on the side, but

the Magnuson-Stevens Act Every year, we have bills that address

the Magnuson-Stevens Act, to do this or that, and, right now, at

the CCC meeting that occurred the day before yesterday and

yesterday, we were advised that there is no atmosphere at this

time to introduce any bill, or follow-up with any bill, except for

two, that will amend significantly the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

In the next four years, after the election, of course, starting in

2021, there might be some room for that, and this council can

suggest an amendment, through the appropriate channels, to the

Magnuson-Stevens Act, but remember that we cannot lobby on

anything, and we need to just ask the question to the appropriate

people, or agency, to whether there will be an opportunity to

increase the number of council members and to add what Carlos

mentioned, but, for the time being, the only way that we can do

that is by making sure that we have representation at every council

meeting that discusses each one of those areas individually.

We will start working on amendments in 2021, and you already gave

us some lists of amendments that you wanted to talk about, and we

need to also allow the regulations to follow the course of being

approved, because remember the plan has been approved, but it’s

not implemented until you have the regulations, and so Maria

mentioned this in the summer, and we need to allow the staff, once

you come to terms of what amendments you would like for each one

of those areas, and we need to allow the staff then to prepare the

appropriate documents.

I believe that, if the plan is implemented in 2021, the first

quarter will be dedicated to look at each one of the areas and

possible amendments, and then the other three quarters will be

dedicated to work on those amendments, and those amendments could

be If the amendments are not in a framework approach, then it

will take a couple of years to be implemented. If they are in a

framework, that might be easier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Miguel. I want to make a comment about

what Carlos said. One way or the other, my intention, and the

intention of the council has been to promote the participation of

all the sectors, and, if it’s appropriate in the future, if it

comes up, I think it’s worth it to explore which we can pursue, a

little more formally, those representations, like Carlos stated.

So far, I am very grateful for the performance the council has had

so far in including all the sectors. How about the Zoom meeting

as a platform for meetings, Miguel?

MIGUEL ROLON: The good news, I believe, has been announced at the

CCC meeting, and I believe that everybody received the notification

that we now can use Zoom, the business version, for meetings.

There are some regulations, some guidance, that the federal

government has to follow to participate, but the bottom line is

that we can now use Zoom for our meetings.

We then will have Zoom as our primary platform for meetings, and

then the secondary will be to GoToMeeting and Google Meet, if it

doesn’t If the Zoom fails, then we will switch to GoToMeeting.

If that fails, we will go to Google Meet. Hopefully that will not

happen, but, with the experience that Graciela suffered during

this SSC meeting, where the GoToMeeting never recovered from

crashing, we welcome this guidance to be able to use Zoom.

The addition of Zoom would allow us to have a very easy streaming

of our meetings, and so the council will be streamed, and people,

fishers and so forth, can join in and look at what we look at and

hear the presentations and the discussions at each council meeting.

By the way, all of our meetings, videos, et cetera, will be at the

YouTube channel that the council has, so people can look at them,

and we will have them all, starting in 2018, and we have the audio.

In 2020, we have all the videos and audios on the channel that

Christina is monitoring. That is the good news, Mr. Chairman,

regarding Zoom.

MARCOS HANKE: The next item for Other Business is Outreach and

Education for Marine Reserves. Miguel.

MIGUEL ROLON: We covered that a little bit before, when Dr. Duval

was giving her presentation, and I had a meeting with Julian and

Tony and Ruth and Diana and myself, and I believe Alida also was

there, and we discussed issues related particularly to the

Grammanik Bank and the Marine Conservation District, in terms of

outreach and education.

Julian went out and had an experience at a restaurant, where people 1 were selling fish, and he questioned that these fish are not

allowed to be sold at this time, and why do you have the fish, and

then he told us that the owners of the restaurant said that they

didn’t know the regulations.

Also, people who frequent Especially non-commercial fishermen

that frequent the Grammanik Bank and areas near the Grammanik Bank,

it seems that they need outreach and education, and so we are going

to make a special effort to have the outreach and education to

include the marine conservation districts, and we now have a joint

venture with the Sea Grant Program, and Sea Grant and the council

will have a special project for St. Thomas/St. John and a special

project for St. Croix, for outreach and education.

In the case of St. Croix, fishermen were telling us that they don’t

know what Sea Grant is doing in St. Croix, and they want it to

have a better presence there, and so Mr. Ruperto Chaparro from Sea

Grant will be working on a project for implementing the presence

of Sea Grant and joining efforts with the council. We also will

recruit, with the liaison officer, Nakita Charles, in St. Croix,

and then we’ll do the same, and we’ll discuss some ways to improve

the outreach and education in St. Thomas/St. John, for the

Grammanik Bank.

We also talked to Nelson, Christina and I, and Nelson Crespo from

Puerto Rico has several good ideas that we are going to implement

regarding social networks and the outreach and education. For

example, in the case of St. Thomas, what Julian suggested was to

use the same placemats that we have in Puerto Rico, but tailored

to the realities of St. Thomas/St. John.

Tony suggested some posters that we can put in the fish houses and

places that people can take a look at it. Those would be depicting

the two marine conservation districts and the species that are

protected and any regulations that we have, and so Sea Grant is

going to do the design of the posters, and we have the placemats

that we used for Puerto Rico, and we are going to do the same in

St. Thomas/St. John and St. Croix.

The placemats will be on paper, because, right now They used to

be plastic, but they have to be paper, and this is a one-time use,

because of COVID, and it’s a good project, and it’s a good

investment of the council’s money for outreach and education.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Miguel. The last item on the agenda

that I have for Other Business is the October 7 meeting. We talked

a little bit already about that, but can you expand, Miguel, before

we adjourn for lunch?

MIGUEL ROLON: There are two things for October. The first, in

the morning, is the DAP meeting of St. Thomas/St. John, and the

idea was to discuss the ecosystem model with the officials of the

U.S. Virgin Islands, so we can hear from them any projects, ongoing

projects, and any information they may have on especially the

eleven components of the ecosystem model that were identified by

the DAP St. Thomas/St. John.

However, we have not been able to receive any names or emails from

the U.S. Virgin Island government agency, and so we are asking Dr.

Angeli and the Commissioner to help us obtain those names, and we

invited them also to a previous meeting, but none showed up, and

so, if we don’t have anybody from the local government participated

in the DAP, we may consider cancelling that meeting in the morning

and just dedicate the meeting to going over some of the fine-

tuning of the ecosystem model of the DAP. Graciela and Liajay

will be available to do the presentation. I believe we have Carlos

Farchette, and Christina posted in the chat the address of the

YouTube channel, so the public can go and check the videos that we

have.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: That’s an old chat request.

MARCOS HANKE: I think we have finished with Other Business. Does

anybody else want a turn to speak?

MIGUEL ROLON: Let me also clarify to Graciela. Graciela, there

are two different Federal Register notices for that meeting, and

I just wanted to make sure that One is for the morning, and the

other one is for the afternoon. Then, in the afternoon of October

7, we are going to meet with all the DAP members and all the

Outreach & Education members, as we said.

Dr. Alida Ortiz suggested that we invite another speaker from the

Sea Grant Program, and we’re sending the invitation through Mr.

Chaparro at this time, and so, in the afternoon, we already have

all the There will be a presentation by each one of the DAPs

and the Outreach & Education, and Dr. Alida Ortiz will give a

presentation of general topics of outreach and education. Yasmin

Velez from the Pew Charitable Trusts will give a presentation, and

we have a place for Sea Grant to address the group on the projects

that they are conducting and will be conducting in the U.S. Virgin

Islands and projects that they have in Puerto Rico so far that are

related to the commercial and recreational fisheries of the U.S.

Caribbean. That’s what we have so far, Mr. Chairman. The meeting

in the afternoon will be chaired by Marcos Hanke.

MARCOS HANKE: Yes. Thank you very much, Miguel. I don’t have

anything else, and I think we can go to lunch now, ten minutes

before, and we will come back at one o’clock for the afternoon

session.

MARCOS

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Now that I have heard Miguel talking about the

Federal Register, when it comes to outreach, I noticed that I no

longer see in the newspaper the advertisement for council meetings,

even though they are virtual, and I’m not sure if there’s a way

that we can continue doing that, and I used to see the

advertisement for the council meeting, when we used to meet face-

to-face, but I haven’t recently seen anything advertised for

council meetings in the newspaper.

MIGUEL ROLON: The newspapers are no longer a requirement for

advertising, but, if you all think that we should go back and do

the advertising, yes, we can do it. We can have every meeting,

starting with the meeting in December, to have the advertisement

in the newspaper, the Daily News and Puerto Rico’s El Vocero. Yes,

we

do that again.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Sure. I think, for St. Croix, I think it’s

kind of important. I mean, I read the newspaper six days a week,

but I don’t read the Federal Register. I get my information

through the emails and through the council website, but not many

people go there, but they do read the newspaper, and particularly

for the St. Croix District. Thank you.

MIGUEL ROLON: That’s a good point. Nobody reads the Federal

Register, unless they really want to know what’s going on. We

switched to mostly the council webpage and electronic, but that’s

a good point, and we are going to continue advertising the meetings

of the council, virtual or in-person or a mix, from now on in the

newspapers of the Virgin Islands and the newspapers of Puerto Rico.

Thank you, Carlos.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Carlos. It’s a good comment, and, adding

to your comment, it’s also a way to advertise that we are doing

the meetings virtually, and it’s a secondary message there that

the jobs didn’t stop, and we keep working virtually, and it’s

another way to reach the people that are interested to participate.

We will come back at one o’clock. Thank you very much for your

attention, and we will restart at one o’clock.

(Whereupon, the meeting recessed for lunch on September 25, 2020.)

The Caribbean Fishery Management Council reconvened via webinar on

Friday afternoon, September 25, 2020, and was called to order by

Chairman Marcos Hanke.

MARCOS HANKE: It’s 1:00 p.m. on Friday, September 25, 2020. We’re

going to restart our meeting, the afternoon section, and, Miguel,

can you hear me well?

MIGUEL ROLON: Yes, I can hear you.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you. The next item on the agenda is the

Executive Order 13921, Section 4, the recommendations made for

that section, and the presentation We’re going to collect

We’re going to ask the DAP and the SSC and the Outreach Advisory

Panel their recommendations, or their input, for that Executive

Order. Miguel, do you want to follow-up?

MIGUEL ROLON: First, what we did between the last meeting and

this one is that several fishers, led by Julian and Nelson and

Eddie Schuster, met to go over the EO 13921, and then the SSC also

went through the same exercise.

What I have on the screen here is the summary of the 13921 sections,

and they have all these sections, and it includes the purpose and

the policy and removing barriers to American fishing, and this is

the Section 4, and this is the section that the council is supposed

to address with the fishers.

Also, yesterday, we were discussing with the CCC the aquaculture

opportunity areas, and, very briefly, these areas are going to be

nominated through the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the

idea is to have at least ten in several years, and they will be

invited. The person is Danielle Blackwell, and she will be invited

to come to a council meeting, probably in December, so she can

present to us the aquaculture components of the Executive Order

13921.

I asked the question, the specific question, of whether the

council, Caribbean Council, the U.S. Caribbean area, could be

considered, given that we are too small, compared to the Gulf and

other areas, but we have some people interested, and we have some

projects with aquaculture, like the queen conch that you saw, and

the sea urchins, and now there is a project on mutton snappers

that Jose Rivera is going to be working on.

Basically, Mr. Chairman, today, we need to address this part,

Section 4, which is this is what we discussed with the fishers,

the local fishers, and, in Section 4, we also have the eight

topics, suggestions, that were given to Dave Whaley, our liaison

with Congress, regarding things that can be considered by the EO

13921.

The first one, marketing of underutilized species and webinars on

how to cook them, it’s kind of funny, because we were working on

a recipe book to promote underutilized species, and so we are

meeting the first requirement way ahead of time, and so I will

have this on the screen, and then, also, we will consider your own

suggestions, Mr. Chairman, for adapting these eight topics to the

realities of the U.S. Caribbean.

We asked the DAP Chairs and the O&E Chair and the SSC to give us

a presentation as to the topics that they would like to see

included in this Executive Order. The first presentations that we

would like to hear from are the three chairs, and you can start in

any way that you would like to order the presentation, Mr.

Chairman, and we have the SSC, and the TAP didn’t meet, but

Graciela may have some ideas of what they would like to address,

because some of the members of the SSC also belong to the Technical

Advisory Panel. Dr. Alida Ortiz is here to represent the Outreach

& Education Panel.

I can advance to you that there were several discussions with

fishers and so forth, and there are two topics that people would

like to include in the letter that you are going to send to Chris

Oliver in October regarding this.

Number 1 is to see if the orders, when we talk about the Section

4(i), changes to regulations, orders, et cetera, and we would like

to ask for a waiver for voluntary surveys to the councils from the

Act.

The experience that we have is, for the Paperwork Reduction Act,

you can have a survey, but it takes you a lot of money to get

permission, and, in the case of the Caribbean Council, we had to

stop our survey, and we switched to what we just did, having the

DAPs and everybody else that is attached to the council meet at

different cases and different dates and go through each one of the

cases that we have. The exercise that you did this morning is the

way that we approached obtaining the information for the five-year

strategic plan.

The other one is that Julian and Tony and Ruth had a meeting with

us, and they suggested that we should include monies to assess the

marine closed areas that we have, and we were talking, at that

time, about the Grammanik Bank and the Marine Conservation

District, but it’s understood that it should be extended to all

closed areas around Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

By no means are the fishermen asking to open the Grammanik Bank or

the Marine Conservation District of St. Thomas. What they would

like to see is that we have some ideas, through surveys, of what

is happening inside, and Tony added that, instead of exploring one

particular species in one corner of the Marine Conservation

District, to study the whole area, and then the results of the

study should be summarized in layman’s terms and presented to the

fishers and the public in general, so we can follow and monitor

the Marine Conservation District and the Grammanik Bank, as well

as any other areas that we have closed via regulations.

That’s in the EEZ, and the DAPs also asked the local governments

to tell us information about what’s going inside in the areas that

they manage, so we can have that information given to the public.

I will stop here, and then, Mr. Chairman, we would like to hear

from the other From the Chairs that are going to address this.

MARCOS HANKE: I am going to Carlos asked for a turn to speak,

and we can start with the DAP. Carlos, if you want to speak about

anything else, use the time now and then continue with your DAP

report on this matter. Go ahead.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Not Carlos. This is Edward Schuster is the DAP

Chair.

MIGUEL ROLON: Marcos, you need to recognize Eddie Schuster.

MARCOS HANKE: Yes. Eddie Schuster, go ahead.

EDWARD SCHUSTER: Okay. The DAP members met, and we came up with

this collaborative report, and so I’ll start off by saying this.

These recommendations are for the U.S. Caribbean Geographical Area

of the St. Croix Exclusive Economic Zone. These recommendations

were submitted by a sub-committee of commercial and recreational

and dive, and also charter, fishers, following the Executive Order

to reduce burdens of domestic fishing and to increase production

within its sustainable fisheries.

Number 1 is improve and develop boating infrastructure, like new

boating ramps and parking in the various landings sites on St.

Croix, USVI, with particularly attention given to Krause Lagoon in

St. Croix and Christiansted docks and hurricane mooring plans, and

also drydock storage areas.

Number 2 is to promote boatbuilding programs to young people to

design and construct commercial fishing vessels in the twenty-one

to twenty-five-foot range, similar to the Spyder boats that are

built in Puerto Rico, in collaboration with the Gold Coast Yachts

and a boatbuilding company on St. Croix.

Number 3 is to develop training workshops to attract young fishers

in the industry. Number 4 is increase the capacity of the Sea

Grant Marine Advisory Board to support fishers. Number 5 is expand

the Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program to include the development

of training workshops to attract young fishers into the industry.

Number 6 is develop electronic reporting for commercial fishers on

St. Croix.

Number 7 is expand the Caribbean small-boat permit to allow fishing

for HMS species. Number 8 is actions that can take be taken to

enhance sustainable fisheries in the U.S. Caribbean and help

alleviate the current seafood trade deficit by incentivizing the

Southeast Fishery Council to begin stock enhancement of critical

commercial fishery species and begin the restoration of the species

by utilizing mariculture operations.

Lowering the application fees for the current regulations in the

U.S. Caribbean from 20,000 to 1,500. Pass the Aquaculture Act HR

6191, A Bill Established for a Regulatory System for the

Sustainable Offshore Aquaculture in the United States Exclusive

Economic Zone of the U.S. Caribbean.

These actions would greatly enhance and restore our wild-stock

fisheries and promote the use of mariculture to address our needs

for a safe and variable seafood increase on our exports and spur

Number 9 is designate the areas of Lang Bank, St. Croix a safe

fishing zone in the EEZ by prohibiting cargo vessels and tankers

from navigating inside the hundred-fathom curve around Lang Bank,

St. Croix. Reduce the northern boundary of the Buck Island Reef

Monument to 300 feet, which would be equal to 91.4 meters, which

presently extends seaward to the depths of over 5,000 feet for

this protection of the deepwater corals and to allow the

traditional fishing activities of trolling for pelagics and

fishing for deepwater snappers.

Number 11 is promote the restoration of prematurely-aged coastal

ponds and wetland restoration projects to be used as a variable

fishing nursery areas. Number 12 is promote the use of fishing

and underutilized species, such as lionfish, diamondbacks, squid,

and deepwater shrimp.

Number 13 is allow special permits to eradicate the lionfish in

the seasonal and year-round closed areas. Number 14 is develop a

recreational fishing license data collection program to obtain

information on the number of recreational fishers and recreational

catch. Number 15 is develop separate ACLs for commercial and

recreational harvest. Number 16 is expand the FAD program to

harvest seasonally-abundant pelagic fish species, thus reducing

fishing effort on the depleted inshore reef species.

Number 17 is conduct studies on the effectiveness of the area

closures and increasing fish populations, such as mutton snapper,

queen conch, and red hind. Number 18 is conduct studies on larval

recruitment and disbursement for St. Croix as an oceanic island

with a small, shallow inshore reef platform.

Number 19 is install a weather buoy off the south shore coast, or

the easternmost point of St. Croix, for real-time data. Number 20

is develop the lanes for commercial vessel traffic off the south

shore coast of St. Croix, to reduce vessel conflicts with fishing

activities. That concludes the report. Any questions?

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much for a very detailed report.

All the chairmen that are going to present today, make sure you

send the written statement or points for us, to make sure that we

don’t miss any points. Thank you very much, Ed. Any questions

from the group?

MIGUEL ROLON: If there is no questions, you can go to the next

one.

MARCOS HANKE: DAP Chair of Puerto Rico.

NELSON CRESPO: Good afternoon, everyone. In the past meeting

that we had with the DAP and fishermen to talk about the Executive

Order 13921, it was brought to the table suggestions that applied

to job security, education, enforcement, and the direct aid to

fishermen, among others. Now I am going to break down what we

talked about in those meetings.

The first one is safe access to the sea. Build new ramps and

piers, where needed, and repair existing ones that are in poor

condition. Build small service marinas, where possible, to

establish new fishing centers on the island, where, at the same

time, you could reserve some spaces for the enforcement agency

vessels. These actions, in addition to providing support to

commercial fishing, would develop socioeconomic activity in the

surrounding areas.

The next one is reform the existing fishing villages with the

necessary infrastructure, to make their more resilient. Equip

them with ice machines for fishermen, with a solar panel system,

a freezer, et cetera. Where it necessary, locate or establish

access to fishing villages for fishermen and customers. This will

help our return to work in less time, in the event of a natural

disaster.

The next one is provide fishermen with the necessary safe equipment

for their boats. Coordinate with the United States Coast Guard to

amend the safety regulations for commercial vessels to exclude the

American Caribbean from the requirement to have onboard the life

raft for vessels of twenty-six feet or less, as made in the State

of Hawaii.

This safety equipment is used mostly in cold water, to avoid

hypothermia, which is unlikely to occur in the Caribbean waters.

In addition, on small boats, space is extremely limited, which

could cause instability to the boat and further restrict the space

for fishing. This requirement could be replaced with personal

location beacons on each Type 1 vessel.

The next one is establish a regulated process to provide aid to

fishermen in the event of natural disasters in the shortest

possible time. Aid needs to get where it needs to go and not to

be used for other purposes.

The next one is allocate funds to help commercial fishermen acquire

new vessels when the useful life of their vessel ends and to

support the restoration of the existing boats and the purchase of

The next one is it is necessary to carry out studies and document

all the information collected on closed areas and fisheries that

have closures of management plans, to know the status and health

of the resource. In most cases, when we establish a management

plan, the result is not received in a reasonable time.

Implement a FAD program, with the collaboration of fishers, around

the island. This would be a great help for commercial fishing,

and, at the same time, it would alleviate fishing pressure on all

fisheries.

The high increase in poachers on our island must be addressed.

In addition to affecting the socioeconomics of commercial

fishermen, it is negatively impacting the management of the

fisheries. The next one is it is necessary to bring in new, young

fishermen. The average age of the commercial fishermen is over

forty years.

The next one is establish alliances with other fish houses in the

country so that, when a surplus of a product occurs, it can be

marketed in other parts of the island. The next one is education

is very important when implementing laws and regulations.

Workshops should be developed to educate law enforcement agencies

and fishermen and all related parties. We must speak the same

language, to avoid misunderstanding and protect the resources.

The next one is evaluate the implementation of compatible

regulations in areas that it can be done, and this is extremely

necessary. This will facilitate enforcement and avoid confusion

in nearby areas where there are different management plans.

It is necessary to create an outreach and education campaign in

restaurants and fishing villages and the community, in order to

offer other species that aren’t known as well that are the same,

or even better, for consumption, and maybe more economically

accessible. This will really help diversify the supply in

restaurants and fish houses and relieve the pressure on other

fisheries.

It is important to hold workshops for fishermen, where they can

learn to use electronic data reporting applications and navigation

systems and weather and nautical charts, et cetera. The next one

is the use of internet is essential everywhere, and that is why it

is necessary to offer access to it in remote areas, such as

Desecheo and Mona Island. This will facilitate help in case of an

emergency, and it would also allow the fishermen to communicate

with their families when they are fishing for several days away

from the island.

The last one is the implementation for greater enforcement to

recreational fishing is necessary. The implementation of the

recreational fishing license cannot continue to be postponed. It

is common knowledge that many recreational fishermen sell their

catch at a lower cost, affecting the market and the commercial

fishermen’s economy. During this COVID pandemic, it was evident,

without the competition of recreational fishers, that it was

possible to sell the catch efficiently, even when most of the

restaurants were not operating. That concludes my report.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much, Nelson. We have on the screen

the document that you sent already, and thank you so much. We

have now the DAP Chair for St. Thomas, Julian.

MIGUEL ROLON: Marcos, do they have any questions for Nelson?

MARCOS HANKE: Does the group have a question for Nelson?

VANESSA RAMIREZ: I just want to thank Nelson for the presentation

and practically getting to all the problems that we have right

now, and so thank you, Nelson, for all your efforts.

you.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Vanessa. Anybody else? Hearing none,

let’s go to Julian.

JULIAN MAGRAS: Good afternoon, everyone. I am just going to list

the top-eight items that we looked at right now, and an official

written report to the Executive Order will be submitted to the

council, but I want to make this nice and short and sweet, and we

had several discussions among the fishermen, both recreational and

commercial, actually, and one day, Monday evening, we had a small

GoToMeeting with some of the members from the DAP, and we were

joined by Miguel and Diana, and thank you for that support in

setting up the meeting for us.

On our list, our top issue right now is dealing with the seasonal

closures and assessments being done, these stock assessments being

done, to these seasonal closures. It’s been over fifteen years

that we’ve had this in place, and we are concerned, and we would

like to know if the seasonal closures are actually working, or are

they working against us, because, in the SFA document, it clearly

states that seasonal closures can work, or it can actually be

detrimental to a fishery.

Also, one of the other top items that we want looked into is the

MCD, which is known as the Hind Bank, and also the Grammanik Bank,

and we would like some reports, to actually see what is taking

place and how effective the studies has been ongoing and what’s

the outcome of these studies, and especially for the MCD. It was

noted, through discussions, that we don’t want to only see the one

spot where they’ve been studying, but we want to know what the

whole fourteen-mile closure is actually doing. The Grammanik Bank

is way smaller, and, with what they’re studying, we should be able

to get some good reports out of that.

Some of the fishers, both recreational and commercial, the issue

is docks, and they would like to see some docks put in place for

their use, because, right now, it’s costing them anywhere from

$900 to $2,000 a month to store their boats at the different docks,

and so there is property out in the mangrove lagoon that some docks

can be built that these fishers, which is maybe about twelve or

less, can put their big boats, where it can ease the burden on

them.

The next big issue was the fish markets. There is two fish markets

that actually have structures built right now, and they would like

to see the other two main fish markets brought up to the standards

and all four of them to meet both health standards and fish market

standards that are used throughout the world, and that includes

having generators and solar panels and everything that supports

that building, like ice machines and running water and restrooms,

the works.

Fishers are willing to help with getting the information that’s

needed, and there is also ownership of two of the properties,

lands, that is willing to donate the land to the fishers, once we

are going to build something to help the fishers out.

The next big issue the fishers had was the improvement of the data

collection program. A lot of the fishers know that we turn in

catch reports, and they are port sampled, or supposed to be, but

it’s not getting done to the satisfaction of the fishers, and they

feel it’s going to come back to bite them, in the long run, and so

they want to see a better improved program, with the fishers being

involved to help the people who would be doing the data collection,

to make the process more effective.

Another issue is local sale, local products, or some way to get

better support to advertise to the restaurants, and to the hotels,

that promotion of fresh, local-caught product be used in those

areas, and there’s been a lot of discussion about that, which would

lead to the next issue of education and outreach and educating the

public and the restaurants and hotels on the rules and regs and

helping to promote the fresh product that is caught on the island.

One other top issue is we talk about trying to get the young

fishers involved, and, you know, while I was here sitting down at

this meeting today, I’ve been texting a couple of fishers, and I’m

here with our Vice Chair, Mr. Blanchard, and something hit me, and

I think it’s something that the council really needs to look into,

and I think it ought to be part of this Executive Order, and that

is a mentorship program.

A mentorship program meaning that you have representatives on the

council and getting one of the young fishers to sit alongside, or

a new fisher to sit alongside, of a member on any of the committees,

the SSC, the council, the DAPs, and help them to understand what

is taking place in these meetings and get a feel for how we bring

back the information to the fishers, and I think that is something

that’s really needed.

Presently, here in St. Thomas, we have I would say maybe about six

new fishers, young fishers, under thirty, and I think it would be

a great opportunity for them to become part of this mentorship

program and understand the process, because we’re not going to be

here forever, and we need to start to wean some of these new

fishers, and young fishers, into the process, and we have both

male and female fishers, and get them involved in what’s going on,

and I think they will be able to help us with getting the message

brought across, and so I really think that we need to see if we

can get some funding or some help, through the Executive Order, to

implement this program. That’s my report today, and I will be

submitting the written response to Chairman Hanke very soon. Thank

you very much.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much for your report. Any questions

from the group? Go ahead, Miguel.

MIGUEL ROLON: Some of the recommendations that we have heard today

can be implemented by the council without the need to go through

the Executive Order outcome and all that. Certainly, now that the

island-based FMPs will be implemented next year, we are supposed

to have meetings specifically addressing issues to the local areas,

and the in-person meetings that were planned before were going to

be for each one of the areas.

For example, we’ll have a meeting in St. Thomas just for the issues

pertaining to the island-based FMP of St. Thomas, and certainly we

can invite young fishers to attend those meetings. It’s not

something that will be extra costly. Now that the meetings will

be virtual, for especially the first-half of 2021, and I had this

for the end, but just to let you know how we’re going to work next

year. Certainly we can invite them to these meetings, and the

council can take this mentorship program and to target a mentorship

program, and, if we ever get money for the 13021, extra funding,

then excellent. I believe that you have now Richard.

MARCOS HANKE: Yes. If there are no questions for Julian, we have

Richard.

RICHARD APPELDOORN: Thank you. The SSC considered the Executive

Order just from the perspective of our role in looking at

scientific issues, but specifically for the roles of stock

assessment, and we had a simple statement, and I think that’s

coming up.

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: Can everyone see it?

RICHARD APPELDOORN: I can, and so I’m assuming it’s fine.

MIGUEL ROLON: We can see it, Graciela.

RICHARD APPELDOORN: All right, and so the statement says, very

simply, the SSC recognizes that, in order to address the policy in

Executive Order 13921, two things are needed on a continued basis.

One is to conduct resource surveys to determine the abundance of

key marine resources in the U.S. Caribbean, and the second is to

conduct quantitative stock assessments that can provide guidance

on OFL limits, i.e., to get to Tiers 1 through 3 of the ABC control

rule. The SSC recommends that the CFMC seek additional funding to

support these activities.

What we’re saying is that, if you want to reduce regulations and

burdens from the role of the SSC, basically, we have to reduce

uncertainty, so we can say, hey, there’s this much resource more

that we’re confident that you can go after. To do that, we need

the money to do the surveys, and that’s fishery-independent and

fishery-dependent, and catch statistics and everything that’s

included in that, and then the ability to conduct the quantitative

stock assessments. That would give us the overfishing limits,

which is a starting point for eventually getting to the ACLs, and

so that’s the gist of our comments on that, and I think it’s fairly

short and simple.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much, Richard. Any questions for

Richard? Thank you for a very precise and clear paragraph. That

was very important. We have also the participation of the Outreach

& Education Advisory Panel. Alida.

ALIDA ORTIZ: I am here. Thank you so much for the opportunity,

and I am really very, very happy, because, when we first saw that

Executive Order, the letter, we were conducting, through the

Outreach & Education Advisory Panel, a responsible seafood

campaign, for probably the last two years, with the idea that we

had to approach the consumers to recognize the species that they

eat and to see that the fisheries is much, much more wider than

just groupers and snappers and mahi-mahi, dorado, that makes our

plates.

We had started a campaign already, with posters of underutilized

species, and also with a placemat of the species, and this has

been limited, at this moment, to Puerto Rico, but we have discussed

with St. Thomas and St. Croix to do the same products for their

areas, and that will be attached to the island-based fishery

management plans.

Also, the other thing is that this campaign is not directly only

to the consumer, and we were, before the pandemic lockout, trying

to hold a meeting with the restaurant association owners, and it

was cancelled, and it was going to be done with the Department of

Natural Resources and the council, the fishery council, where we

would present them all the information that we have on closed

seasons and why are those species being regulated and the spawning

aggregations and the importance of these, the importance of the

size they catch, and when, the restaurants presents something in

their menu, they must make sure that this is not a regulated

species under a closed season or a size limit, because they will

be contributing to violating those regulations. That is still the

plan, and, as soon as possible, we are going to do it.

The other thing is that, at this moment, we are also working on a

cookbook, so that we can present to the consumers cooking methods

that are not the traditional, exclusively traditional, ones that

we have for fried fillet or the same type of cooking all the time,

and so we have very good chefs from Puerto Rico and the Virgin

Islands that are presenting the recipes for sixteen species, some

from Puerto Rico and from St. Thomas and from St. Croix.

Then part of that book will be a good chapter on the ecology of

these species and where they are found and when are they fished,

and this type of thing, and another chapter on the nutritional

value of these species, and then the recipes with the information

about the species.

We have been working with that for quite a few years, and now we

will continue with it, expanding it to each one of the islands,

and that’s the thing we are doing, and we have a meeting of the

Outreach & Education Advisory Panel next week, and we are going to

present this to them, even though this has been discussed and this

has been their idea, and we are just implementing the

recommendations, but, if there are any new changes, or any new

recommendations, I will get them, and I will make a report to the

council for this Executive Order. That is my report.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Alida. Thank you very much. Any

questions for Alida?

MIGUEL ROLON: Alida, the idea was for the O&E AP to tell us what

should be included in the communication that Marcos will have to

send to Chris Oliver regarding 13921, and so probably you can send

us a letter, similar to what Richard did, that these are the things

that should be included, and then we can include it for Marcos’s

report to the official National Marine Fisheries Service in

Washington.

ALIDA ORTIZ: I will do that. Can that be done after the meeting,

after the O&E AP meeting?

MIGUEL ROLON: Yes.

ALIDA ORTIZ: Okay. Great, because that’s what I am going to do,

is present the Executive Order to them and then discuss what we

could produce for that letter.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Alida. I want to make a comment, to put

it in perspective, the local situation of the U.S. Caribbean, and

this is from my expertise as a fisherman and talking to the

fishermen around, and it’s going to be a little repetitive at

first, but it’s saying that, because of all the damage of the

hurricanes, the past hurricanes, earthquakes, and now COVID, the

industry is already being affected by multiple things at the same

time, and sometimes it’s hard to measure.

I made a synthesis of things that I think are important to mention,

and it’s what the fishermen have been saying to me. For example,

a lot of them, and I am addressing now specifically the COVID, but

a lot of them have been They stopped fishing, for multiple

reasons, being afraid of being sick, a reduction of market,

restrictions of the local Executive Order, and, also, the timing

of the Executive Order that didn’t allow them to go out, and, also,

the diminishing of They are going less days out and fishing for

less time in the water.

Fishermen are reporting less landings overall, because of no 1 market, and some of them are reporting loss of equipment, because 2 it’s stolen or lost, because they couldn’t go out to tend the gear,

and something else that is very important is the hotels and

restaurants have been operating at a minimum capacity, and some of

them have never opened yet, and this is one of the main markets,

especially for the high-end products, like lobster, on our island,

especially on the east coast and some areas around Puerto Rico,

where tourists believe is better.

It’s necessary to have these in mind once we make the

recommendations on the Executive Order, because that’s the reality

that the fishermen from different regions are calling me and

talking to me and saying, Marcos, make sure that people consider

this information before they take any decision, and we need the

support of the council, and this is just one note from the Chair.

Thank you. we can keep going on. Miguel.

MIGUEL ROLON: You have the agenda. What is next?

MARCOS HANKE: I thought you asked for a turn to speak. Does

anybody else want to make a comment on this matter, or should we

keep going? I don’t have anything else, besides the Executive

Order, and I would like to hear either from Maria or Roy if they

have something else to say to complement all the information that

was presented by the chairmen of the different groups.

MIGUEL ROLON: Mr. Chairman, I believe that we covered everything

that we had, and the next step is just to explain to the group

what we are going to do. I have Nelson Crespo is trying to talk.

MARCOS HANKE: Nelson, go ahead.

NELSON CRESPO: I just wanted to bring to the table one comment

that belongs more to the local government than the council, and I

wanted to talk straight to Damaris, to see if she can give us a

hand. We have a delay with the issue of the renewal of fishermen

licenses, and everybody is asking me, day-by-day, if I know what’s

going on, because I have fishermen that have applied for the

renewal for six months, and they have not received the new license,

and so, Damaris, can you answer that? I would really appreciate

it.

DAMARIS DELGADO: Yes, and so I realize what you are talking about,

and I know that the volume of requests for renewals have been

great, and also of new requests from many fishers, and so the

volume of work of the office has been exceeding what it usually

is, but at least the way we are dealing with that is that, every

time the Secretary extends the activation of the licenses with an

Administrative Order.

Through Administrative Orders, he has extended the validity, or

the time, of the licenses, because of all these COVID challenges

that we have been facing and the problem of coming to work and not

remotely at DNER, and also some infrastructure problems that we

have been facing, for example with the air conditioner here at the

central office.

For the people that have requested their renewal applications on

time, they don’t have to worry about it, and they can keep fishing,

and they can show these Administrative Orders that extend the

validity of the licenses into the future. For all those people

that are worried, they shouldn’t be worried, because we are aware

of the requests for the renewal applications, but, since there are

so many challenges that we are all facing in these times, those

administrative orders will cover them, and they shouldn’t get any

interventions from law enforcement agents, like the Rangers.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you.

MIGUEL ROLON: Damaris, can you send us a written statement that

we can publish on Facebook, so the fishers will be able to get

that information?

DAMARIS DELGADO: Yes, and I can send you the latest Administrative

Order extending the validity of the licenses.

MIGUEL ROLON: I have a note here from Graciela, but she’s saying

the same thing, and so that would be greatly appreciated.

DAMARIS DELGADO: Okay.

For sure.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Damaris, and I want to also put something

very short in the discussion that complements everything that we

have been saying, once we discuss the impact on the economy and so

on, and I was on the internet the other day, and this is for the

council to give me input on this, or to see if it’s a good idea,

but we have an association of restaurants in Puerto Rico, and this

is also statistical information of the government of Puerto Rico

and the tourist data that addresses three major information that

we need in terms of seeing how the economy on people that buy the

fish has been lately, in the past year.

That data, I think, is available through those three committees,

or parts of the government, and I would like to hear from you,

Miguel, or from Graciela which is the best way to request that

information and to see if we can have a little more information on

those decisions about how the economy has been affected and the

capacity of buying fish and all that.

MIGUEL ROLON: This is outside of this meeting. I believe that

what you are referring to is Other Business again, but we can get

that information and send it to you, and Graciela and I will work

on it and send it to you. Here, what we need to ask the group is

are you all finished with 13921, and then we can talk about the

next meeting of the council.

MARCOS HANKE: I don’t hear anything else. Does anybody else have

any comment? It looks like nobody has any other comments, and it

looks like we’re finished with the recommendations.

NEXT MEETING

MIGUEL ROLON: Okay, Mr. Chairman. Then the next meeting of the

council is December 8 and 9. It will be virtual, and as well as

the meetings of the council between January through June of 2021.

If we have a situation where everybody will be vaccinated, and

still alive after the vaccine, we will start having in-person

meetings, with a mix of in-person and electronic platforms.

From now on, the council will work that way, until further notice,

but it seems that, from the meeting that we had with the CCC and

the information provided by the National Marine Fisheries Service,

they are going to be working, during 2021, with a mix of at-home

and present employees approach to this. Also, the council will

follow the development of the COVID plan.

Somebody asked me what happens now that you have done all of this

about 13921, and, well, it all depends on the election, really.

However, it seems like regulations that National Marine Fisheries

Service does every year, or every three years, and so, whatever we

have in terms of regulation, it’s something that the National

Marine Fisheries Service and the council can consider without

having to get into any of the consent of the 13921.

Others are requesting money here and there for the different

activities that you mentioned, from science to infrastructure,

will depend on the budget allocations for the next three to four

years, and so that’s all we have, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair and the staff will develop the agenda for the December

meeting, and it will be a Zoom meeting, by the way, and we will

start from nine o’clock probably until three o’clock on the 8th and

the 9th, depending on what we have for that meeting. That’s all

we have, Mr. Chairman.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much. If we don’t hear anything,

any other questions, Christina Olan is stating on the chat here

that the order was also posted on Instagram, and we are ready to

adjourn the meeting. Thank you to all for your cooperation and a

productive meeting, and I will see you next time.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Hold on.

MARCOS HANKE: Carlos.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: For the December meeting, I have a topic for

the agenda for Other Business, and so should I just send it to the

council, to Graciela or somebody, and it’s only one slide.

MIGUEL ROLON: No. Go ahead.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: I will send it to Graciela.

MIGUEL ROLON: Then she can put it in the

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Also, Miguel, when you were talking about

December and mid-2021 or 2022, whenever we do in-person, and we

were talking like vaccines, is that going to be like mandatory to

attend an in-person meeting?

MIGUEL ROLON: That’s the kind of things that we are looking at.

Right now, the COVID control plan that the council has, which was

adopted following the federal and local law, is not addressing

that part. The only thing that it’s addressing is whomever works

for the council has to fill out a form releasing the council from

any legal action if you get the COVID.

The way that we are going to work next year is still pending

discussion, because you cannot require a person to be vaccinated.

It’s up to each person to decide on that one. However, what we

can really require, according to the lawyers that we have been

discussing this with, is that the person has to bring a

certification, recent certification, of COVID free, and that’s as

far as we can go with any in-person meeting.

Requiring vaccination and all that, it’s not something that we

have addressed, but, at that time, for the first in-person meeting

of the council, we need to establish a protocol that we are going

to follow. I know that certain people are promising a vaccine

before November 3, but other experts are saying no way, Jose, and

you are going to have a vaccine probably in June, and so this

council, at least, will be on virtual meetings during half of 2021,

and maybe the entire 2021.

The staff is not going to go to the office as usual until we have

the COVID-free environment for all staff to be at the office, and,

now that I’m talking about it, just the other day, we had an

incident, and a person that came to the council office to deliver

some shelves later told us that she had COVID, and so, at that

time, I had Liajay We had a meeting of the SSC, and I had to

tell Liajay to get out of the office, and, also, I have to

quarantine Natalia and Luz, because they were present in the

office, and so this is very serious, the way that you have to

implement this COVID control plan, and so it’s a long answer to

your question, but, in summary, the council will be virtual until

we have the conditions for opening the meetings to in-person, and

perhaps what we are going to have is a mix.

I myself am not going to go anywhere until I get vaccinated, and

I am too old, and I am too sweet. I am diabetic, and I’m seventy-

one, and so I’m not going to go anywhere, and that means that we

will have the facility for the people to participate. Mr.

Chairman, I have Robert Copeland that has a question.

ROBERT COPELAND: Thank you. I just want to confirm, and we’re

stating that the next meeting, the next virtual meeting, is going

to be in December, and what are those dates again?

MIGUEL ROLON:

8 and December 9.

ROBERT COPELAND: Okay, and there’s not going to be another council

meeting in between these two meetings, correct?

MIGUEL ROLON: So far, no. It’s not expected that we are going to

have another meeting.

ROBERT

Okay. Thank you very much.

MIGUEL ROLON: You are welcome.

Thank you very much.

MIGUEL ROLON: Mr. Chair, did you receive Carlos’s

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Not yet. I will be sending it in a minute.

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: I can also make him the presenter, if

you want to just show your screen.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: No, this is not now. This is for the December

meeting.

MIGUEL ROLON: What is it that you want to talk about, Carlos?

CARLOS FARCHETTE: I want to talk about safe fishing zones.

MIGUEL ROLON: Okay.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: So that would be either under Other Business or

on the agenda, and I’ll send a slide to Graciela for the December

8 meeting.

MIGUEL ROLON: Just send us a request to include it in the agenda,

and we’ll include it in the agenda.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Okay. That sounds good.

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: Are these Coast Guard safe zones or

something else?

MIGUEL ROLON: He will write it and send it to us, Graciela.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Yes. I didn’t want to take up too much time

here.

MIGUEL ROLON: Mr. Chairman, for closing the meeting, you need a

motion and then to adjourn the meeting.

MARCOS HANKE: I need a motion to adjourn the meeting.

So moved.

MIGUEL ROLON: Any in opposition? The motion carries.

MARCOS HANKE: Is there any opposition? Hearing none, the meeting

is adjourned. Thank you very much, everybody. See you guys next

time.

(Whereupon, the meeting adjourned on September 25, 2020.)

PAGE 111: Motion to accept the report from Dr. Alida Ortiz and

Christina Olan and to support the proposals suggested for outreach

and education with the participation of the U.S. Virgin Islands

fishers and scientists, as well as those in Puerto Rico. The

motion carried on page 111.

The Caribbean Fishery Management Council convened via webinar on

Tuesday afternoon, December 8, 2020, and was called to order at

1:00 o’clock p.m. by Chairman Marcos Hanke.

MARCOS HANKE: Good afternoon, everyone. It’s 1:06 p.m., and we

are going to start the 172nd CFMC Virtual Meeting. Good morning,

and welcome, everyone. We’re going to have a very productive

meeting at this time, and we’re going to start with the roll call.

Today is December 8, 2020. Natalia, can you help me?

NATALIA PERDOMO: Yes. Please, if there’s anyone that has their

number or their email or their name, and you can update it, so we

can call your name properly, that would be appreciated. I am going

to start with Miguel Rolon, Graciela-Garcia Moliner, Liajay

Rivera, Marco Hanke, Alida Ortiz, María de los Irizarry, Tony

Blanchard, Christina Olan, Diana Martino, Edwin Font, Guillermo

Cordera, Julian Magras, Hector Ruiz, Jesus Rivera, Jocelyn

D’Ambrosio, Katie Siegfried, Kevin McCarthy, Loren Remsberg,

Michelle Duval, Michelle Scharer, Nikita Charles, Orian Tzadik,

Richard Appeldoorn, Iris Oliveras, Adyan Rios, Wilson Santiago,

Vanessa Ramirez, Shannon Calay, Sarah Stephenson. If I missed

anyone, please identify yourself.

MARCOS HANKE: Do we have anybody else?

Thank you, Nicole.

EDWARD SCHUSTER: Did you get me, Natalia? This is Edward

Schuster, St. Croix DAP Chair.

NATALIA PERDOMO: Yes. Thank you, Edward.

EDWARD SCHUSTER: Okay. Thanks.

MIGUEL BORGES: Miguel Borges, NOAA Fisheries Law Enforcement.

MARCOS HANKE: Anybody else that we didn’t call that is present?

ESTHER VELEZ: Esther Velez, copywriter of Sea Grant Program.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Esther. Anybody else? Hearing none, I

think we can proceed, and we will recognize the people as they

connect themselves to the meeting. Thank you, Natalia, for the

help. On the Adoption of the Agenda, I will pass the mic to

Graciela, and we have some last-minute changes to add, Graciela?

ADOPTION OF AGENDA

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: Good afternoon, everyone. We need to

include, under We have received Edwin Font’s public comment,

and so that can be included either under the discussion of the

deepwater snapper here or under other comments.

We do have a short Ecosystem-Based Fishery Management Technical

Advisory Panel report, but, instead of Sennai Habtes, it would be

Orian Tzadik who would be presenting the review, and we are not

going to have the presentation by Raimundo Espinoza on the squid

fishing project. Then we won’t have students presenting on the

assessment of COVID-19 impacts on commercial fishing associations

in Puerto Rico, and that will be Marcos Hanke.

Tomorrow, right before Enforcement, at 10:15, we will have a

presentation on the proposed rule to designate critical habitat

for threatened Caribbean Corals.

MARCOS HANKE: What time, Graciela, again?

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: That would be at 10:15 in the morning.

Mr. Chair, that’s all I have as modifications to the agenda.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much, Graciela. I need a motion to

adopt

CARLOS FARCHETTE: I move to adopt the agenda as written.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Carlos Farchette, and thank you, Tony.

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: May I request the adoption of the agenda

as modified, as I read the changes to the agenda, please?

MARCOS HANKE: Do you agree, Carlos?

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Yes, I do. I need to add something for Other

Business. Is this the right time to do that?

MARCOS

Yes.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: I would like to add, to Other Business, maybe

either today, after Julian, or tomorrow sometime, but safe fishing

zone designation.

MIGUEL

Other Business is tomorrow.

Okay.

MARCOS

MIGUEL ROLON: Can you repeat what you want, Carlos, so Graciela

can add it to the agenda?

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: What’s the name of the title for the

tomorrow?

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Designating a safe fishing zone area of Lang

Bank, St. Croix.

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: Thank you. You would be presenting that,

or who would be presenting that?

CARLOS FARCHETTE: I will present that. I sent Natalia one slide

on that, and it won’t take very long.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Carlos. Let’s move on with the adoption

of the agenda. Carlos, can you restate your intention to adopt

the agenda as discussed?

CARLOS FARCHETTE: I move to adopt the agenda as modified.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you. Tony.

TONY BLANCHARD:

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much, Tony. The agenda is adopted.

MIGUEL ROLON: Marcos, if there is no opposition, then the agenda

is adopted, but you have to take a vote.

MARCOS HANKE: Any opposition to the adoption of the agenda?

Hearing none, the agenda is adopted. Thank you, Miguel. Now

Consideration of the Verbatim Transcription of the previous

meeting, the 171st. Any comments? We need a motion.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: I move to accept the verbatim for the 171st, the

council verbatim minutes.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Carlos. Is there a second?

MARCOS HANKE: It’s seconded by Tony Blanchard. Any opposition?

The verbatim transcription is adopted, and now we will go to the

Executive Director’s Report. Miguel.

MIGUEL ROLON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Very quick, just to mention

that the budget for 2021 is being prepared as we speak, and

probably they will let us know today, and Paul Doremus is going to

address that at the meeting with the Washington people.

We do not foresee any problems with the budget. It has been very

well received by all the councils. In the case of 2020, the monies

that we saved for not having in-person meetings will be used for

outreach and education, and so you will hear a little bit more

when we get to the report tomorrow by Dr. Alida Ortiz.

In addition, we have some funding that will be received from NOAA

Fisheries for international working groups that we coordinate and

co-host with the WECAFC secretariat, and those are the spawning

aggregation working group, the queen conch working group, and the

new dolphin wahoo working group, and that probably will be an in-

person meeting, if the people are allowed to travel, depending on

the COVID situation by the end of the third quarter of 2021.

In addition, we are going to have a presentation that you will

hear by Christina Olan, and the monies that were approved for the

coral reef and other species in the habitat section call for 1 outreach and education of the scientific work being done using

those funds, and so we have a proposal, and I would like to also

When we hear the proposal, I would like to have a motion from

the council approving the proposal, given the monies involved. It

will have three parts, and you will see that presentation.

We also have hired Dr. Diana Beltran, and she’s going to be working

on the answer to the question that was posed by fishers, by Julian

and Tony, in the meeting that we held sometime ago, with Alida and

Ruth, which is what is happening in the marine reserves that we

have, and so we are going to have two parts.

The first one will be an outreach and education project with Sea

Grant and CARICOOS, and we are going to follow the recommendations

by the fishers, which is to have outreach and education materials

depicting the areas that we closed in the EEZ and why, when, the

species included, and, in addition, we will have some material to

identify the species that are underutilized and those species that

can be fished without any problems, regarding the not overfishing

and not overfished situation with any of them.

We also have then Dr. Beltran looking at that information, and so

will do literature research, and she’s an expert on marine

reserves, and, actually, her dissertation was done in Puerto Rico

and the Virgin Islands, and that work will be done by the end of

March, and so it will be presented at the April meeting of 2021.

We also are involved with the NOAA Seafood Inspection and

International Fisheries in Washington and coordinating with them

on three projects, and one of them is the big fish communication

strategy, which was presented to you some ago, and the

communication strategy will have a group of people preparing videos

for the protection Calling for the protection of the spawning

aggregation of snappers and groupers. That will be done in 2021

too, and the first half of that already has been done, and

Christina Olan is working on the posting of those videos, and you

will see them on the YouTube channel in 2021.

The other thing that I was going to mention to you, and this is

the last part, is we are going to amend our SOPPs, if we ever get

them back, but I have been in conversation with Morgan Corey, and

she is the coordination for the regional fishery management

councils and National Marine Fisheries Service, and she suggested,

and that’s what we are going to do, a memo to the record stating

that the council will be teleworking until the end of 2021.

Even though we may have people vaccinated and everything in 2021

against COVID, most people are not going to travel to meetings in

2021, and so we are going to do the teleworking, and the staff

will be going to the office once a week, at least, and they will

be continuing the operation of the council as of now.

Actually, my hats off to the staff people, because members that we

have of Natalia, Liajay, Luz, and Christina, they have been working

with us and doing more than they are supposed to by teleworking,

and so it works, and so, next year, we will continue teleworking

until the end of December, and it will be until December 31, and,

if we are going to have an in-person meeting, probably that will

be by the end of the year, at the December meeting. Thank you,

Mr. Chairman. If you have any questions, let me know.

MARCOS HANKE: I don’t have any questions, Miguel. Thank you for

the report. Does anybody have a question for Miguel, very quick,

before we proceed? Hearing none, the next item on the agenda is

the Five-Year Strategic Plan Update and Michelle Duval. Welcome,

Michelle. The floor is yours.

FIVE-YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN UPDATE

MICHELLE DUVAL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and council members, for

allowing me to be here today to give you an update on your strategic

planning process. Where are we? We’ve been at this for a while

now, and so we began our data-gathering phase in the spring, with

our reaching out to stakeholders to collect their feedback with

regard to priorities that they thought the council should consider

for development of its five-year strategic plan, and so, in the

spring, we launched an online survey, and I provided the DAPs and

the council, as well as the O&E AP, some updates on that in June.

Then we ran into a few challenges, one of those being COVID, and

then we also had some other procedural challenges, and so we had

to develop an alternative approach, and so we did that in July,

focusing on a virtual stakeholder input approach, and we

implemented that starting in August, and so we had the O&E AP, the

district advisory panels, and the council participate in virtual

input sessions, facilitated input sessions, that were focused on

four different theme areas with regard to future priority

development.

We also, for folks who were not able to attend one of these public

meetings, we also developed an online public comment form that

allowed participants to also provide input with regard to those

four theme areas as well, and I will talk about that a little bit

later, and then, in November, and just in the early part of this

month, I have completed the draft stakeholder input report, and

Miguel sent everybody a copy of the executive summary of that, and 1 so we’re just finalizing a few last-minute edits on that.

Just as a reminder, these are the four public input discussion

themes that our alternative approach was focused on: resource

health, social and cultural and economic issues, management and

operational issues, and communication and outreach.

If you recall, we had a discussion, a review and discussion, brief

discussion, of the different issues or topics within each one of

these themes, and then we asked participants at the DAP meetings,

as well as council members, to provide sort of their top-five

priorities within each of the themes, with the exception of

communication and outreach. Because all of the communication and

outreach issues were considered to be important, we asked folks

for suggestions and recommendations for future consideration as

the council moves forward.

I just wanted to quickly review the issues, and so you all saw

these tables at your September council meeting, and so this is

just a list of the resource health issues that were discussed, and

the Xs represent the priorities that were selected by the different

groups, and the exception is now this table has a row for the

council.

All I wanted to do here was just highlight where sort of some of

the major overlaps are, and so you can see, the row that’s

highlighted in yellow, this was a common priority among all four

groups, and that was enforcement, and then followed by the rows

that are highlighted in gray, and so this was a common priority

among three out of the four groups, and the first one of those was

erosion and sedimentation, and the next was habitat loss and

destruction and

and rehabilitation.

Just moving on to the same table for the social, cultural, and

economic issues, again, these were the top-five priorities

selected by each one of the groups, and we have added the council

to this table.

Again, there were several more, a total of three common priorities

among all four groups, the first being the closed seasons and stock

assessments for affected species and evaluation of the council’s

seasonal and area closures. Then illegal and unlicensed commercial

fishers and inadequate enforcement, and so all those highlighted

in yellow were common among all four groups. Then, just following-

up, lack of social and economic data and infrastructure needs were

common to three of the groups.

Moving on to management and operational issues, this was the list 1 of topics that was discussed, and, again, the two issues here that

were listed as priorities common to all four groups were accurate

and timely commercial and recreational data collection and

enforcement of existing regulations. Then highlighted in the gray,

following-up, these were issues that were common to at least three

of the four groups, and those were fisher involvement and data

collection and territorial licensing requirements.

Again, as I mentioned earlier, for communication and outreach,

only the O&E AP was asked to prioritize a list of what was

originally six issues. When the DAPs reviewed the list of six

communication and outreach issues, they also made some suggested

additions and edits, primarily expanding communications to other

groups as well as expanding the roles of fisheries liaisons, to

increase liaison understanding of issues, and so this list that

you see here on the screen is the communication and outreach

topics, as modified by the DAPs.

I just wanted to really highlight, I think, some of the topics

that were most discussed among all of the different groups

primarily, and all topics were important, and everyone agreed that,

in general, more communication and outreach is needed, both

generally as well as for specific groups or areas or for specific

issues.

Everyone also noted that the variety of communication tools is

really a constantly-evolving thing, depending on the audiences

that we’re trying to reach, and that there should be consideration

of generational preferences in communication types. One of the

other major topics was improving general public awareness of

fisheries issues and that this is really important to help build

understanding of and support for local fisheries and fishing

communities, as well as just an increased knowledge of the

relationships between like non-fishing activities and the

resource.

Clarity and simplicity of presentations and communications was

really a big concern, and I think the DAP chairs really highlighted

that during your last meeting, that this is really critical to

engaging more fishers, as well as more members of the general

public, in the council process, and it can be intimidating

sometimes to come to a council meeting and not understand some of

the complex concepts that the council addresses.

Then, finally, there was a lot of discussion about additional in-

person outreach, and, clearly, that’s been impacted by the pandemic

this year, as well as the expansion of the liaison roles and the

important roles that the liaisons play in terms of helping fishers 1 to understand issues under consideration and ensure that their

feedback is incorporated into the process.

Then I just wanted to talk briefly about the online public comment

form, and so, again, this was an additional opportunity for members

of the public to provide feedback to the council regarding what

they thought might be issues of importance under the four themes,

and so we had a series of open-ended questions that were phrased

as, given your experience and knowledge, what do you feel are the

most important issues impacting a particularly theme area, and

then we also had one final question at the end that allows folks

to provide any final thoughts on anything they thought the council

might want to consider.

The comment forms were in English and Spanish, and we had separate

forms for each of the islands, for each of the districts, and so

we had that available for five weeks, and we had a total of ten

respondents, and only the Puerto Rico form was used.

Just to quickly highlight some of the major responses that were

received under each of the areas, the little number in parentheses

just represents the number of people, or the number of respondents,

who provided that as a recommended priority, and so, under resource

health, most folks thought that coastal development, pollution,

and habitat loss and destruction were priorities that the council

should consider, but climate change, harvest of juvenile or

undersized fish, and the lack of enforcement presence were also

noted by a few folks, and then someone suggested also consideration

of Considering rotating the seasonal area closures.

Under the social, cultural, and economic concerns theme, we had

six individuals that cited illegal and unlicensed fishing as a

priority that needed to be considered, and one of those folks also

noted a failure of even licensed fishers to report at times. A

couple of folks noted that there was, in general, they felt a lack

of education and knowledge and that more education would be

helpful, both for the general public as well as fishers.

Then there were a few other issues, such as the rising costs of

seafood, lack of infrastructure, and aging of fishermen and a lack

of young entrants into the fishery who had a good conservation

ethic.

Moving on to management and operational issues, there were several

topics here that several folks mentioned, the first being

enforcement of existing regulations and having some regulatory

compatibility. The next was just having better education for

fishers and the public with regard to the rule, and the next was

Some folks noted difficulties and delays in the licensing

process, and I think that was really referring to the territorial

licensing process, which the council doesn’t necessarily deal

with.

Then just other folks mentioned having limits on possession of

fish species, as well as limiting the allowable fishing areas and

then also having accurate commercial and recreational catch data,

and then, finally, with regard to communication and outreach,

several folks mentioned the need for and support of electronic

tools and social media, videos and webinars, but others also

emphasized the importance of having paper and traditional media,

like newspapers and television.

Folks supported in-person outreach, in the form of like

roundtables, and, also, there were suggestions for having like a

stakeholder orientation, where people could be made aware of the

different types of communication tools that were available, as

well as having sector-specific communication plans and education

materials that were boat-friendly, so that fishers could take these

materials on the boats and they wouldn’t be ruined.

Then, finally, we also conducted some management partner outreach,

and so the council’s management partners are the territorial

agencies, territorial governments, as well as NOAA Fisheries, and

so these are just categorized into a couple of different slides,

the first one being suggestions for priorities as well as mutual

objectives of things that are of interest to both the council and

the management partners.

One of those is continued support for improving data collection

and data management, and so not just the catch reporting, but also

social and economic data, continuing to strengthen relationships,

and so that includes stakeholder relationships. Community

involvement and outreach, as well as federal and territorial

partnerships, evaluating the effectiveness of existing management

approaches, to ensure that they’re meeting the council’s

management goals and objectives, continuing to move forward with

implementation of ecosystem-based approaches, as well as

collaborating on regulations and having regulatory collaboration

and consistency, and then increased support for scientific and

assessment capacity and resources.

Then there were just a few suggestions with regard to partnerships

and process, and so ensuring that the council’s habitat protection

initiatives and the essential fish habitat designations and the

review process are aligned.

Then continuing to maintain the council’s Caribbean-wide

partnerships, such as those with WECAFC, working towards enhancing

communication and information exchange across all partners, so

that everybody is aware of what’s going on and who is doing what

in the U.S. Caribbean, and then also making sure that everyone has

consistent messaging among the management partners for these

issues of mutual importance, such as the importance of recreational

data collection.

Just in terms of next steps, all of this feedback that we’ve

collected will inform the development of the framework for the

council’s strategic plan, and so that will start first thing in

2021, and Miguel and I were talking, and I think what I would like

to do is to be able to present the council with a draft framework,

where you all could see the structure of the plan, in terms of the

major goals for each of the different Each of the council’s

different districts.

Then, once the council is satisfied with that, then we can move

forward with filling in the development of objectives and

strategies, and so hopefully we would have a draft strategic plan

by your April meeting, and that would be reviewed by you all, by

the council, by the district advisory panels, by the Outreach &

Education Advisory Panel, and that feedback would be used to modify

the plan as needed. Also, recommending that, once a draft has

been approved, that the council also have that plan available for

public comment.

Once that public comment has been received, we would present that

public comment to you all and make any modifications that the

council would like to see, and then, by late 2021, or late summer

of 2021, you would have a final strategic plan, and so, with that,

Mr. Chairman, I will I still have the presentation here, but

I’m happy to take any questions.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you. Great presentation, Michelle. Thank

you very much. The floor is open for questions. Any questions?

Go ahead, Carlos.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Thank you, Michelle. That was a good

presentation here, and my only question is, when it comes to the

area where it says coastal development and pollution, and also

lack of infrastructure, I think you are referring to like fish

markets and ramps, and all of that falls within the territorial

jurisdiction, and so that would be coordinated I guess the

responses to these questions will be coordinated through the

commissioner of DPNR, and is that what I am looking at in the

MICHELLE DUVAL: Let me just go to the slide, and I think that

I think this is where you’re seeing this, this slide right here,

where we’re talking about infrastructure needs, and is that what

you’re referring to, Carlos?

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Yes, that’s one of them.

MICHELLE DUVAL: As well as some of the comments that were received

with regard to the lack of infrastructure, I think, from the

comment form as well?

MICHELLE DUVAL: So I do anticipate that that feedback As you

have pointed out, that’s really more of a territorial issue, and

that those comments would certainly be provided to both the USVI

DPNR and well as the Puerto Rico DRNA, and certainly the council

can highlight the importance of that, or note the importance of

those, and provide support for the territorial governments, in

terms of encouragement, if this ends up being a priority that the

council chooses to move forward with in different regions.

Communicating that to the governments would be the way that I would

anticipate the council might consider moving forward.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Okay. Just one more question, because I think

I had mentioned it before, but I don’t see any Xs on forage fish,

and I don’t know where that slide is, forage fish or

Abundance of baitfish or forage.

MICHELLE DUVAL: So I think one of the things, and I believe that

Miguel mentioned this, as we started all those virtual public

sessions, is that these were We did this to Because the

council can’t work on every issue all at once, all at the same

time, this was a way to try to determine some priorities, and so,

just because there’s not an X on abundance of baitfish and forage,

it doesn’t mean that the council wouldn’t necessarily work on those

things, and it doesn’t mean that the council wouldn’t That you

would cease any work that it is currently engaged in on those

activities, but we do have to have a way to try to prioritize the

council’s resources. So it doesn’t mean that this is not at all

important, but that it might not be one of the first things that

the council tackles.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Okay. I’m good with that. I guess, at some

time in the future, because our St. Croix Fisheries Advisory

Committee has been discussing managing baitfish, flyingfish and

sprat, or whatever it’s called, but we can work on something when

that comes up, and I guess we’ll have something to discuss.

MICHELLE DUVAL: I agree, and that’s also a topic that is likely

to be part of the council’s ecosystem-based fisheries management

efforts, and it is being discussed under the development of the

council’s fishery ecosystem plan, I would anticipate.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Okay. Sounds good. Thanks.

MICHELLE DUVAL: Thank you, Carlos.

MARCOS HANKE:

MIGUEL ROLON: Marcos, you have Vanessa.

VANESSA RAMIREZ: Thank you, Marcos. Michelle, thank you for this

great report, and I had the opportunity to check it out, and I was

just thinking, and my question is about the participation on the

online, that we only obtained ten participants, and are you

planning, for the next steps, to use other kinds of Like sending

a link directly by email, because some of the fishermen, that I

see in their comments, when I put the online form, they were like

They don’t want to answer.

They want to participate, but they don’t want to answer, because

they don’t know what it’s going to be used for, and so, for the

next steps, and it’s a just a comment, but maybe we can make like

a small introduction, in Spanish, of course, for these commercial

fishermen and that we can send it more directly by email or by a

WhatsApp link or something like that, that they feel comfortable

with that. Thank you, and I know that you have been doing a lot

of work with these reports and all these questions, and so,

anything you need, we are here for you. Thanks.

MICHELLE DUVAL: Thank you, Vanessa, and that’s a great suggestion,

and I think I would be happy to work with you more directly and

figure out how we can try to use WhatsApp and other regular email

and other means of ensuring that fishermen who want to participate

are able to participate in this process, and so please let’s

definitely keep in touch, so that we make sure that we get the

word out to everyone. Thank you very much for that.

MARCOS HANKE: Anybody else have a question?

WILSON SANTIAGO: I have a comment.

WILSON SANTIAGO: For Michelle, I have I am creating a database

of contacts of all the PEPCO participants, and I have emails and

telephone numbers, and so maybe we can use them to send out

messages to all the participants, so they can comment.

MICHELLE DUVAL: Thank you so much, Wilson. That would be so

helpful, and I am pretty sure I have your email information, and,

if not, I can get it from Miguel, just to make sure that we’re

getting the word out to people in the way that they prefer to be

communicated with, and so thank you so much.

WILSON

MICHELLE

Just contact me, and we’ll work something out.

you.

MARCOS HANKE: Anybody else? Michelle, can you go back to Slide

7, please?

MICHELLE

MARCOS HANKE: I am just going to use this slide as trying to

follow-up with what Carlos said. If it’s possible, in the future

discussion about the strategic plan, if there is any way that we

can highlight the things that we actually can decide and work

directly on the council, versus the things that we’re going to

recommend other agencies, or there is indirect participation from

the council?

MICHELLE DUVAL: Yes, we absolutely should highlight those things

that are within the council’s direct purview, or direct control,

versus those things that would need to be addressed by other

agencies, and I think that’s very important, so that stakeholders

understand exactly what the council is able to do versus what the

council is able to communicate to other responsible agencies or

entities, absolutely.

MARCOS HANKE: I think that’s very important. Thank you very much.

Would anybody else like to comment?

WILSON SANTIAGO: I would like to speak.

MARCOS HANKE: Go ahead, Wilson.

WILSON SANTIAGO: It was last time, when I told Michelle about the

and I already spoke.

MICHELLE DUVAL: I think Wilson is saying he already provided his

suggestion for how to contact fishers in his database.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you. Hearing no more questions, I think it’s

a great job, and do you have everything that you need from us,

Michelle?

MICHELLE DUVAL: I do, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all so much, and,

like I mentioned, Miguel and I are working on just a few last edits

to the full report, and that should be available soon. Thank you.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much. Miguel, a question. In the

beginning, in your executive report, you mentioned something about

a motion that was needed, and it was now?

MIGUEL ROLON: No, not for this.

MARCOS HANKE: Okay. Perfect. I was a little confused.

MIGUEL ROLON: The last part, Michelle, that we want to emphasize

is that remember that, once this management plan is implemented,

or this strategic plan is implemented, then we will have to have

a sub-committee of council members and staff to go over the plan

and see what are the milestones for every year.

Then, each December, the council, as you are gathering here now,

has to review the progress made in the previous year, and also the

schedule for the next year, and so that’s when we are going to

identify which action can be taken by the councils, as per the

Magnuson Act, and which other actions will be just recommendations

for the different agencies to undertake. Those two are really

important once the strategic plan is implemented, and I believe

that Michelle has said that a couple of times already in previous

meetings.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Miguel. Thank you, Michelle, again. If

we are ready, let’s go to the next item on the agenda, and the

next item is the Scientific and Statistical Committee Report.

Before you start, Richard, I would like to recognize people that

are connected since a little while ago. Please state your name,

people that were not on the roll call before.

NICOLE ANGELI: Nicole Angeli from the USVI DPNR.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Nicole.

DAMARIS DELGADO: Damaris Delgado from DNER in Puerto Rico. Hello 1 to all.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Damaris. Anybody else?

JACK

Jack McGovern, NOAA Fisheries.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Jack. Thank you very much. Welcome.

AIDA ROSARIO: Aida Rosario from Puerto Rico.

MARCOS HANKE: Welcome, Aida Rosario. Next person.

MADELINE

MARCOS

This is Madeline Guyant with DPNR DFW.

JANNETTE RAMOS-GARCIA: This is Jannette Ramos-Garcia from the

Puerto Rico Sea Grant Program.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Jannette. Is there somebody else?

MATT WALIA: This is Matt Walia from the NOAA Fisheries Office of

Law Enforcement.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much. Welcome. The next person?

MIGUEL

Good afternoon. Miguel Borges, NOAA Fisheries Law

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Miguel. Welcome. Next person?

MANNY ANTONARAS: Good afternoon. This is Manny Antonaras, NOAA

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Manny. Welcome. Next.

DANIELLE OLIVE: Good afternoon. This is Danielle Olive from the

USVI DPNR.

MARCOS

Thank you. Are we missing anybody else?

JAMES BRUCE: Good afternoon, everybody. This is Lieutenant James

Bruce with the United States Coast Guard.

MARCOS HANKE: Welcome. Thank you for attending the meeting.

Anybody

JOHN WALTER: Good afternoon, everyone. This is John Walter from

NOAA Fisheries in Miami, and I’m representing the Southeast

Fisheries Science Center. Thanks.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, John. Thank you very much for connecting

with the meeting. If we are missing anybody there, please send

your name via the chat to recognize your presence. Go ahead,

Richard. Thank you for your time.

RICHARD APPELDOORN: Thank you. This is the report from the SSC,

and we actually have three things, and one is our completed work

on the ecosystem conceptual model, the second is looking at the

spiny lobster constant OFL and ABC values, instead of the time-

varying ones, and a little bit about Executive Order 13921:

Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth.

Our ecosystem conceptual model, I’ve shown you this before, and

this is kind of where we’re working to, I think, and, as a way of

summary, remember that we have eight sub-models, and those sub-

models have varying numbers of components.

The sub-models are listed here, and the number of components are

in parentheses, and, all in all, this leads to a potential of

64,000 connections in the model, and we were struggling with a way

to deal with that kind of variability.

This is what the model looks like in a spreadsheet form, and I

showed this to you last time, and the boxes along the diagonal are

the sub-component models, and those that kind of have a peachy

color to them are connections within each sub-model, and so what

we are working toward now are the connections between the various

sub-models, and we had some ideas, from very early discussions,

about potential connections, and those were illustrated in green,

but we’re really not going to deal with those anymore at the

moment.

Our priority was the connections between components within each

pair of sub-models, and we decided the first approach of this would

be to identify the three most important connections, their

direction, and that is to say is it a positive or negative

relationship, and their strength, ranked as low, medium, or high,

and we felt this was a way to start and focus the SSC as it

evaluates the potential of 64,000 component-to-component

connections, and it provides interim results for the council and

for the EBFM TAP. These could also be made available to other

interested groups, like the Lenfest project and the Center’s

What we did is we worked through this sheet here, and, as you can

see, you have the eight models, sub-models, represented in both

the horizontal and vertical axes, and each member was asked to

then fill out what he thought the highest priority The three

highest-priority connections were, and so we might go to something

like here is socioeconomic and economic factors, and how do they

affect say habitat.

We would go over here and find the sub-component driver in the

socioeconomic model, and say, okay, what does it connect to, and

is that a positive or negative relationship, or is it going to go

both ways, and is it low, medium, or high in its strength, and so

each person had to fill out each one of these squares for

everything that is in white in this table.

There is fifty-six sets of comparisons that each member was asked

to make, and then we all brought that to the meeting and worked

our way through them.

As an example, and I actually showed this last time, but the three

most important component connections from say socioeconomic and

cultural drivers sub-model affecting fishing might be seafood

imports and exports affecting commercial catch, market demand

affecting commercial catch, and tourism affecting recreational

fishing catch. In this case, two of the driver components affect

the same target component, and that is commercial fishing catch.

If you list all of the components of the sub-models, this is what

that example would look like, with the arrows going from the

driving sub-models, the socioeconomic and cultural components, and

pointing to what sub-components in the fishing sub-model they are

reacting to, and, graphically, it would look like this, but I’m

not going to show any more of the connections in between the sub-

models, and so the connections within a sub-model are in blue, and

the two-sub-models are there, and those connections between the

sub-models are in yellow, going from the driving ones in red to

the targets in blue.

How we would fill this out in this form would be we have a driver

component in the SEC sub-model, and it’s targeting a response

component. We have directions, and these are positive

relationships, whereas seafood imports and exports could go either

way, because imports and exports tend to act in opposite

directions, and then you might say one is medium and two are high,

and remember this is just an example, and that’s not an actual

result.

This, however, is an actual result, and this is, again, just one

example out of the fifty-six sets that we looked at, and, in this

particular example, it’s the competing uses of resources sub-

model, and we’re looking at land-based uses, because that’s the

target sub-model, and you have, across here, the scores of the

individual SSC members, and each one was asked to give their top

three, and so, in each column, you will see three scores, and the

numbers, 1, 2, and 3, are low, medium, and high, to give them a

numeric value, and here are the target ones that were identified,

and so, if you don’t see anything here, there was no connection

between say artificial reefs and anything in land-based uses.

Here, there were ten connections that were given priority by at

least one SSC member, and those are the ones in blue here, and you

can see that industrial waste was highlighted twice, and we get a

number of different kinds of information that can be used by people

developing the larger model, and that’s listed over here.

If you come across here, most of the SSC members identified a

connection between coastal development and urban runoff as being

important, and, if it’s a strong relationship, they gave it a

three, and so seven of the members identified that, and so the

tally is how many members thought this was an important connection.

The mean is the mean score that those seven people gave it, and

there would also be a variance associated with that, and that’s

not listed here, but that would be there, and, finally, there is

the sum, which is just the sum of the scores across, and so that’s

the same as the tally multiplied by the mean, and so this is

another indicator, or a quantitative indicator, that can be used

in developing a model, in terms of what kind of variance there is

among the members in identifying these things and how important

they are.

This one in orange, again, is It has seven out of the eight

people identifying it, and they all gave it a three, and it had

the highest score of twenty-one. The next-most-important

component was marina activity affecting other non-point-source

discharges. Five of the SSC members gave this as one of their top

three, but they said it was a medium impact, and so the scores

were two across-the-board, for a sum of ten, and so, even though

only two less people thought this was an important component,

compared to the coastal development and urban runoff thing, the

score, the sum, is much less than It’s less than half, because

the strength of that connection, two, was considered to be less

than the connection for the first one, which was three.

The only other If you wanted to come up with a third one, it 1 would be this one, with only three people picking that, and there 2 was some discrepancy about what the score would be, and so that’s

an example, and, of course, we did this fifty-six times, and we

discussed each one of these, and people were allowed to change

their scores, because sometimes they would say there’s a connection

between here, and someone else would say, no, that connection

actually runs through another sub-component before it interacts

with that one, and so you might want to change your score in light

of that, and so we had a lot of discussion for each one of these

fifty-six sets of comparisons that we did.

Overall, the result was that we identified 484 connections between

components across sub-models, and, if you counted the connections

within the sub-models, we’ve now accounted for 788 connections

within the conceptual model as a whole.

This is what it now looks like, and I have now taken out the peach

color for within the sub-models, and I have put red in the boxes

where there is at least one score for a connection between one

component in a sub-model and another one, and you can see there’s

lots of red here, and so there’s lots of connections, and you can

see places where you have a row of lots of red, which would be

indicating that the component here is something that lots of other

things target, whereas, if you come across, and here’s an example

here, where you see lots of red going across, this is something

where a component is hitting lots of targets, and so this driver

is affecting a lot of things across-the-board, and I will identify

those in a minute.

There are thirty-six red boxes on this line, and this is natural

disturbances under abiotic factors, and so the members of the SSC

felt that natural disturbances were something that had a strong

impact across lots of things, and you can see habitat, water

quality, fishing, land-based uses, socioeconomic and cultural

drivers, and so it’s one of the more It, in fact, was by far

the most important single driver.

The other two were much less, and there is only nineteen boxes for

those, and this one is coastal development, and this one is

regulatory structure, and that regulatory structure is non-

fisheries regulatory structure, and so things that might affect

land use and then affect erosion or something that, as opposed to

directly affecting fisheries, like gear restrictions or quotas or

closures, and so I think this emphasizes a point that’s already

been made several times already this afternoon, that there’s a lot

of things that are affecting fisheries that are outside the

specific realm of the fisheries agencies.

Looking the other way, there were four components that seemed to 2 be affected by a lot of different things, and so inshore forage 3 fishes were affected by nineteen sub-components in different

models. As you might expect, coral reefs and seagrass beds are

important habitats, and they were also affected by lots of

different things in other sub-models, and fishing grounds, which

is sort of a You can view it as sort of a habitat issue as well,

and that was also strongly impacted by quite a number of sub-

components in the other sub-models.

We started out with something like this, and now we have something

like this, and I think, if we gave this a brown background and

black-and-white colors, they would look fairly similar, and so I

think we’ve made a lot of progress, but you can see how complex

the system really is, and the nature of things might vary a little

bit from island to island, but I think the overall structure of

things is probably fairly standard across actually most fisheries,

and what you would be changing might be the habitats and whatnot,

but, for us, where we’re really driving at coral reef fisheries,

this is going to be fairly standard.

That’s where we are now, and this was done in September, and we’re

going to, I think, wait to hear back on how far they would like us

to go in finishing. Remember that this is just what came out of

everybody’s top-three, and this does not mean that there are not

more important connections to be made, but we just had to start

someplace.

The next topic was the spiny lobster three-year constant ABC, and

this was fairly simple for us to do, actually, and so the SSC

recommends that the approach to determining the three-year

constant ABC for spiny lobster is to determine a three-year

constant OFL and then to apply the constant buffer.

The constant OFL was determined by taking just the three-year

average of the OFL, and, when you do that, you get the following.

With the current data available, the resulting recommended values

for the years 2021, 2022, and 2023 constant OFLs are 420,000 pounds

for Puerto Rico, 170,000 pounds for St. Thomas, and 167,000 pounds

for St. Croix. For those same years, the constant ABCs would be

almost 371,000 for Puerto Rico, 150,000 for St. Thomas, and 148,000

for St. Croix, and these values may change as new data is entered

before this is actually implemented.

I would just like to say why we chose that approach. You get the

same answer if you take the These are the variable OFLs and

ABCs for each island platform that were presented at the last

meeting, and an approach was recommended by the Center to just 1 take the average of these, and you get the same answer as when you

take the average of the OFLs and get that and then derive the ABC

or if you just take the average of the ABCs, but there is a

difference, and the difference is that, if you keep this OFL at

406,000, and you make this 370,000, you are increasing this value,

and you are, therefore, reducing the space, if you will, between

the Between what was 358,000 and 406,000 is now 370,000 and

406,000, which gives you a risk of A greater risk of

overshooting your OFL, which you do not want to do.

By taking the average of the OFLs, that value is larger for that

year, and that gives you space between these two values, and so

there is less of a risk for overshooting the OFL, and so that’s

why we recommended to first take the average of the OFL and then

apply the buffer to get to the ABC.

Lastly, we had some language for Executive Order 13921, and I think

the deadline for this, for the council to respond, has already

passed, but this is what we had recommended, and it had to do with

Section 2, Policy, and there were statements about providing good

stewardship of public funds and stakeholder time and resources and

safeguarding our communities and maintaining a healthy aquatic

environment, and so, in addressing those, we said the following,

or recommended.

In light of the Executive Order 13921, the SSC recommends to the

Caribbean Fishery Management Council that the necessary resources

be made available to conduct resource surveys to determine the

abundance of key marine resources in the U.S. Caribbean and to

conduct quantitative stock assessments that can provide guidance

on OFL limits, and that is to say Tiers 1, 2, and 3 of the ABC

Control Rule.

The gist behind this was, if we can reduce uncertainty, and we

know that there is room in the fishery, we can open up that fishery

for greater exploitation, with more certainty that things will be

okay, and so that was our statement for that, and I think that was

made available for the council, so they could respond to the

Executive Order, and I think that’s it. If there are any

questions, I

HANKE:

RICHARD APPELDOORN: I wanted to point out that the lobster OFL

and ABC issue is going to be addressed in greater detail, I think

by Sarah in the next presentation.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you. I don’t hear any questions, and I think

we can keep going with the presentations, but, before I would like

to recognize the presence of Laura. Thank you very much for

attending our meeting, Laura.

GRACIELA

Marcos, who are you addressing?

MARCOS HANKE: I am recognizing the presence of Laura.

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: Her microphone is not working, but she

is present.

MARCOS HANKE: Okay. Thank you very much. We will keep going on

the next presentation, please. I didn’t have any questions for

Richard at this time. This will be the Ecosystem Conceptual Model

Presentation.

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: You jumped the spiny lobster and gear.

Check your agenda, and so, after Richard, we have the spiny lobster

framework amendment with Sarah Stephenson making the presentation.

SARAH STEPHENSON: This presentation will provide an overview of

the action and preliminary alternatives for updating management

reference points for spiny lobster following the accepted SEDAR 57

stock assessment, to be included in a framework amendment to each

of the island-based fishery management plans.

This is just a quick recap of major events, to-date, following the

SEDAR 57 stock assessment for the Puerto Rico, St. Thomas/St. John,

and St. Croix spiny lobster stocks. At the October 2019 SSC

meeting, the SSC determined that the SEDAR stock assessments were

suitable for management advice.

At the December 2019 council meeting, the SSC and the Science

Center presented how spiny lobster management reference points

would change following the change from a Tier 4 stock to a Tier 3

stock in the ABC Control Rule, and that is included in each of the

island-based FMPs. Just as a quick reminder, Tier 4 stocks are

considered to be data-limited with no accepted assessment, and

Tier 3 stocks are considered data-limited with an accepted

assessment.

At the June 2020 council meeting, the council accepted a P* of

0.45 for spiny lobster, and that’s the risk of overfishing, for

each island for use in Tier 3 of the control rule, and, at the

August 2020 council meeting, the SSC presented ABC recommendations

for each year, for 2021 to 2026, and SERO staff presented options

for setting ACLs from those variable ABCs that the SSC recommended.

Following that options presentation, the council requested the SSC

coordinate with the Science Center to provide a constant ABC for

spiny lobster for each island group, based on SEDAR 57 and based

on the first three years of the OFL projections, which would be

2021 to 2023. It was the council’s intent to request an interim

assessment be conducted in 2023 that would update the OFL

projections and get catch levels for 2024 and beyond. That brings

us up-to-date following the September SSC meeting that Richard

just summarized.

Following the outcomes of that September SSC meeting, the

interdisciplinary planning team, or the IPT, drafted a draft

framework amendment to the Puerto Rico, St. Thomas/St. John, and

St. Croix FMPs that would modify spiny lobster management reference

based on the SEDAR 57 stock assessment and Tier 3 of the ABC

Control Rule.

Through a framework amendment, the council can more expeditiously

adjust reference points and management measures in response to

changing fishery conditions, and the list of framework measures

that were included in the island-based FMPs include situations in

which a new stock assessment or other information indicates changes

should be made to the MSY, the OFL, the ABC, or other related

management reference points and status determination criteria.

A quick note that island-based FMPs would need to be implemented

before this framework amendment for spiny lobster could be

implemented, and the island-based FMPs are expected to be in place

in 2021.

For each island-based FMP, the amendment would update the maximum

sustainable yield at MSY, and the overfished criteria, which is

the MSST, and the overfishing criteria, which is the MFMT, based

on the SEDAR 57 stock assessments.

Two actions are included in the draft amendment. Action 1 would

update the spiny lobster OFL, ABC, and ACLs, using either a

constant catch or a variable catch approach, and Action 2 would

update accountability measures for spiny lobster.

For each action, the council could select a different alternative

for Puerto Rico, St. Thomas/St. John, or St. Croix, and, at this

time, the IPT will be looking for feedback on how the council would

like the alternatives to be developed for the amendment, and I

will ask for that at the end, or you can make comments at the end

The SSC recommended both constant catch ABCs and variable catch

ABCs for spiny lobster for each island for 2021 to 2023 based on

the OFL projections during that same time period and using Tier 3

of the ABC control rule.

Through Action 1, the council would select the preferred approach,

either constant or variable, for specifying OFLs and ABCs and then

the process for determining ACLs from the ABCs. Under the variable

catch approach, ACLs would change from year to year for the 2021

to 2023 period. Under the constant catch approach, the ACL would

be the same each year, and so the ACL in 2021 would be the same in

2022 and the same in 2023.

Per council request, an interim assessment to update the OFL

projections would be conducted in 2023, and that would be used to

set catch levels for 2024 to 2026. Pending results from that

interim assessment, a subsequent framework amendment would be

developed at that time to update the spiny lobster OFLs, ABCs, and

ACLs. The interim assessment would not update the MSY or MSY

proxy, the MFMT, or the MSST specified in the SEDAR 57 stock

assessments. It is possible that this process may not be complete

and in place by 2024, and so you’ll see some of the text that deals

with that in the next couple of slides.

For Action 1, Alternative 1, it would not change the OFL, the ABC,

or the ACL specified for spiny lobster under each island-based

FMP. However, those ACLs exceed the ABCs recommended by the SSC

following the SEDAR 57 stock assessments. The Magnuson-Stevens

Act specifies that catch levels cannot exceed the ABC recommended

by the council’s SSC. Thus, Alternative 1 would not be valid under

the MSA. It’s included in the draft document for NEPA analysis

purposes.

Under Alternative 2, the council would select the constant catch

approach for specifying OFL and ABC for spiny lobster and use the

constant catch ABC to derive the constant catch ACL, which would

be set equal to the optimum yield for each stock under one of these

following sub-alternatives.

Sub-Alternative 2a would set the ACL equal to the ABC, and it would

reflect no management uncertainty. Sub-Alternative 2b would apply

a 5 percent management uncertainty buffer, which would set the ACL

at 95 percent of the ABC, and Sub-Alternative 2c would apply a 10

percent management uncertainty buffer, which would set the ACL at

90 percent of the ABC.

Just as a reminder, management uncertainty refers to uncertainty

in the ability of managers to constrain catch so that the ACL is

not exceeded and the uncertainty in quantifying the true catch

amounts. Sources of management uncertainty could include late

reporting, misreporting, underreporting of catches, or lack of

sufficient in-season management. These management uncertainty

buffers here are similar to those used in setting ACLs under the

island-based FMPs.

Alternative 2 would set ACLs for that 2021 to 2013 period, and the

council could request the SSC discuss using the constant catch

ABCs that were recommended for 2021 to 2023 beyond that time

period, in the event that updated OFLs, ABCs, and ACLs for spiny

lobster are not in place by 2024.

For Action 1, Alternative 3 would select the variable catch

approach for specifying OFLs and ABCs for spiny lobster for the

2021 to 2023 period, based on the SEDAR 57 stock assessments, and

use the variable catch ABCs to derive the spiny lobster variable

catch ACLs, which, again, would be set equal to the optimum yield

for 2021 to 2023, under the sub-alternatives. Sub-Alternatives 3a

through 3c reflect the same level of management uncertainty as

Sub-Alternatives 2a through 2c.

Pending council and SSC review, Alternative 3 would include the

caveat that the variable catch OFL, ABC, and ACLs established for

2023 would be used for 2024 and beyond, until updated assessments

and subsequent rulemaking are available and completed.

Table 2.4 in the draft amendment document, which is on the

council’s website, contains the preliminary constant catch ACLs

for spiny lobster for each island, based on the constant catch

ABCs recommended by the SSC, as reduced by the council’s management

uncertainty buffers in Sub-Alternatives 2a through 2c, and so the

first column with numbers, with data, reflects that no management

uncertainty, where the ACL equals the ABC. The second column of

numbers is the ACL has a 5 percent reduction buffer for management

uncertainty, and the third column has the 10 percent reduction,

and there is one for each island.

These are preliminary numbers, because the OFL projections and

resultant ABC and ACL estimates could be updated using finalized

2019 landings data before the council takes final action on the

amendment, and I did verify with Richard Appeldoorn, and these

numbers match the numbers that he presented in his presentation.

Table 2.5 in the draft document contains the preliminary variable

catch ACLs for spiny lobster for each of the three years, 2021

through 2023, based on the variable catch ABCs recommended by the 1 SSC, reduced by those same management uncertainty buffers. Again,

these numbers could be updated and included, or would be updated

and included, in the final amendment.

Under each island-based FMP, spiny lobster is considered a Tier 4a

stock, and the OFL is defined, but it’s not quantified. Instead,

a new reference point, the sustainable yield level, is quantified

and used as the OFL proxy, and so, as mentioned earlier, following

the SEDAR 57 stock assessments, spiny lobster stocks would be

considered a Tier 3 stock, and the OFLs would be quantified, and

so the language describing the overfishing determination process

was revised in the draft amendment as follows.

For both Alternative 2 and Alternative 3, in the years that spiny

lobster stock assessments are completed, overfishing would occur

if the fishing mortality rate, which is F, exceeds the MFMT. In

other words, if the ratio of F to MFMT is greater than one, then

the stock is undergoing overfishing. In years without a spiny

lobster stock assessment, overfishing would occur if the annual

harvest exceeds the OFL, and so, in other words, if the landings-

to-OFL ratio is greater than one, then the stock is undergoing

overfishing.

For Alternative 1, overfishing would be determined as described in

the FMPs, which you can find that description in Chapter 5, Section

5.13.4 in each of the island-based FMPs.

Through Action 2, the council would revise the years of landings

data that would be compared to the ACL for triggering an AM for

the spiny lobster stock under each FMP. At this time, Alternatives

included in the draft framework amendment include using a three-

year average or a single year of landings, which I will discuss

more on the next slide.

The goal of the AM trigger is to evaluate whether landings exceeded

the ACL that was in place and prevent exceedances going forward,

and so this can be complicated by the data lag. For instance, for

Caribbean stocks, complete landings data are generally available

two years later, and it can also be complicated when ACLs change,

as they will with this amendment.

For example, if the new spiny lobster ACLs are in place in 2021,

those landings data most likely will not be available until 2023,

and so we, as the IPT, would want to make sure that the alternatives

included in the amendment for revising the AM process take that

data lag and the changing ACLs into account. The IPT will continue

to work on this action and the effects analysis for the

This is just a quick comparison of those draft alternatives

included for the AM trigger, the three-year average or the single

year. Using a three-year average as the AM trigger would continue

the approach historically used for U.S. Caribbean stocks.

Averaging landings over a three-year period would be expected to

reduce the effects of variability in the landings data, which could

be due to either biological factors, such as variations in year

classes, or economic factors, such as changes in market demand.

This approach would be expected to trigger AMs less frequently if

the landings in one or more of the years were below, or well below,

the ACL, as the low years would even out a high year of landings.

However, when using averages, years with very high landings could

trigger AMs in consecutive years. For example, if landings in

2021 were greatly above the ACL, then those landings may result in

two or three years of consecutive AMs being triggered, because

that high year of landings is used in the averaging process.

On the other side, using a single year of landings to trigger an

AM could reduce the effects of a year with really high landings,

meaning that that year with high landings would only be used in

the trigger evaluation once, and then it wouldn’t be used again.

This approach is simpler to use when ACLs change frequently, for

example following updated assessments, but this would be a change

in the process historically used to trigger AMs, and using a single

year only would not account for any of that variability in

landings.

Here’s a brief look at some of the other text included in the draft

alternatives for triggering an AM, and that would be slightly

different from the text in the island-based FMPs. Alternative 2

would use a ramp-up process, meaning a single year of landings

followed by a two-year average followed by a three-year average,

and thereafter a running three-year average to trigger an AM. This

is similar, but it would not prescribe which years to use, as the

island-based FMPs did.

The alternative includes text that the ramp-up process would

restart whenever the ACLs are reset, and this could prevent this

AM process from needing to be revised again during a subsequent

amendment. The alternative would keep the condition that would

allow the RA, the Regional Administrator, in consultation with the

council, to deviate from the specific time sequences used to

trigger an AM, but it would modify the text from “based on data

availability” to “based on the best scientific information

available”. This would allow for more flexibility in the clause.

For example, if the expansion factors used to adjust the Puerto

Rico commercial landings were determined to be too high or too

low, then that data may not be considered the best scientific

information available, and the RA and the council could use

alternative years.

Finally, this alternative would include options for using an

arithmetic mean or a geometric mean to calculate average landings.

The current process uses an arithmetic mean, and I will show you

a quick example of how these two approaches work on the next slide.

Then Alternative 3, which is that single year of landings, would

include that same condition that would allow the RA, in

consultation with the council, to deviate from the years used,

based on best scientific information available.

Here is the difference between a geometric mean and an arithmetic

mean. They are different in how they’re calculated, and so

consider three years of landings data, 300,000 in year-one, 300,000

in year-two, and then 600,000 in year-three. The arithmetic mean

of these values would be 400,000, and so you add the three values

and divide by three, and you get 400,000. The geometric mean of

these values actually multiples the values together, and so 300,000

times 300,000 times 600,000, and then it takes the cube root, and

it returns a slightly lower value, and so 377,976 pounds.

Using a geometric mean generally returns a more conservative

estimate, i.e. a lower number, and, as such, it may prevent an AM

from being triggered, when compared to using the arithmetic mean.

The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council is proposing using

a geometric mean for triggering an AM for post-season recreational

AMs for their snapper grouper fishery, because their recreational

landings data are highly variable. The Caribbean Council could

consider using this approach and if it’s useful for considering

variability in spiny lobster landings.

Here are the next steps for development of the framework amendment

following the successful spiny lobster assessments. Again, this

amendment will not be able to be implemented until the island-

based FMPs are in place. The IPT would like council feedback on

these alternatives included, including if there’s any that we

haven’t thought of that you might like to see developed.

The council could request that the Science Center update the OFL

projections and the ABC estimates, using complete 2019 landings

data, when they are available. The council could request that, at

the February 2021 SSC meeting, the SSC review the updated OFL

projections and ABC estimates provided by the Science Center and

discuss the shelf life of using those 2021 to 2023 OFLs and ABCs.

The goal of the 2023 interim assessment would be to have those new

values in place by 2024, but being able to use the 2021 to 2023

values into 2024 would give us the flexibility in getting those

new numbers, including new ACLs, in place. The SSC could also

give feedback on the use of arithmetic versus geometric means for

ACL monitoring purposes.

The IPT will continue to work on the Action 2 alternatives for

revising the AM trigger, and it will prepare a more complete

framework amendment that includes analysis of effects for each

action and alternative, and staff will present that framework

amendment at the April 2021 meeting for council review. With that,

I will take any questions.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Sarah, for a great presentation. Would

anybody like to make questions? Go ahead, Vanessa.

VANESSA RAMIREZ: I just wanted to make a comment about the

numbers. As I always say, we know that the data is not real, and

I will just put an example of two of the main fish markets that we

have in Cabo Rojo. Practically, between those two, they make more

than 1,000 weekly of pounds of fish, just between those two, and

we have ten in my town, and so, when we make the multiplication

for the six days that they work, the number, the real number, of

lobster that we are moving here is really high.

Considering that, I always ask please to go for the highest number,

because we know that we have a lot of commercial fishermen that

are not reporting, because of they don’t complete the statistics,

or because they lose their license, or because they are different

kinds of situations with the license, and so how are we going to

work with that, because, if we put less pounds, we know that the

next year, 2021, 2022, and 2023, if they start reporting as they

supposed to, and we hope that they continue doing that, with the

new application and with the hope that all of them receive their

license for the next year, and how are we going to work with that,

if we put a less number?

SARAH STEPHENSON: Thank you, Vanessa. I didn’t show it in this

presentation, but all of our alternatives for triggering an AM

would retain that clause that unless the NMFS Science Center

determines that an overage occurred because data collection or

monitoring improved, and so if we can look at the landings data

and see that the overage was because more people were reporting,

as opposed to maybe just that the catches were high, that we had

the same level of reporting and catches were higher, then the

Science Center, I think, could help inform us that that was the

case, and then that clause would kick in.

Even if the AM was triggered, it might not be applied, and so there

is that potential that I didn’t show in this presentation, but

that would be included in the amendment, and it’s included in the

island-based FMPs, if that helps.

VANESSA RAMIREZ: Okay. Thank you.

MARCOS HANKE: Anybody else from the Virgin Islands?

NICOLE GREAUX: My question was along the lines of Vanessa’s also,

and so I do know that we are going to start getting more reporting,

as far as recreational catch is considered too, and, if the

geometric means is going to be used to do these product numbers

and then the square root after, how do we But we’re not

separating the commercial catch from the recreational catch, but,

since this is going on until 2023, I do know that those numbers

are going to be a little bit skewed from the base, and do you all

have anything to use different variables, to make sure your numbers

are as close to accurate as possible?

SARAH STEPHENSON: Let me answer, I think, the commercial and

recreational part. The ACLs that are included in the island-based

FMPs and that would be in the spiny lobster amendment are only for

the commercial sector, although, in the USVI, they would govern

the recreational sector too, and that was because, when these were

being set up, we didn’t really have any recreational landings data

for the USVI or for spiny lobster and Puerto Rico.

For spiny lobster, if it is determined that an AM needs to be

applied, I think it would be how it has been in the past and that

both sectors would be closed. Going forward, if we start getting

better information and better data, like especially from the

recreational sector, then that could go back to the SSC, or the

Science Center, and they could help establish ACLs for that sector,

and they could definitely include that data in the next round of

maybe the spiny lobster full SEDAR assessment, whenever that’s

going to be planned.

Going forward, that data would be useful, and I’m just not quite

sure, at this time, how it might fit in with what’s going to be

outlined in this amendment, and I don’t know if that answered the

second part of your question.

NICOLE GREAUX: Yes, it does. Thank you, Sarah.

MARCOS HANKE: Questions?

ahead, Carlos.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: I just wanted to know, and are we going to

decide here today what action and alternative each island-based

plan is going to decide on? Are we going to do that here today?

SARAH STEPHENSON: That wasn’t our intent at this point, and we

were just looking for kind of your general feedback on do these

actions look okay. If you had a strong feeling one way or the

other on say the constant catch or the variable catch, the council

could make that known, but we’re not looking for you to select

preferred alternatives at this point.

We just kind of wanted to prepare you for what’s going to be coming

in the amendment in April, and probably, at that time, we would be

hoping that you would pick preferreds, but, if you have a

preference, or a general feel of how you think you would like, for

instance, St. Croix to be considered, I would definitely write

that down as part of the rationale at this time.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Okay. I think, at the last meeting, I did

mention that I would prefer to see a constant ABC. One of the

things that is happening here on St. Croix is that I think it

happens every year, from November, December, and January, and conch

seasons opens on November 1, and so a lot of the fishermen move

from lobster diving to conch diving, because that’s what the

consumer is waiting for, and so they kind of let up on the lobster

harvest, and I just wanted to make sure that we don’t let that

slide by. I am looking at constant, and I don’t know if there’s

anybody else. Well, from the St. Croix District, it’s only Edward

Schuster onboard here, and so

MIGUEL ROLON: Marcos, if I may, a question for Sarah. Sarah, do

you think that this presentation could be given to the DAPs, let’s

say in the first quarter of 2021, so that we have an input from

them before we

SARAH STEPHENSON: Yes, we can definitely do that.

MIGUEL ROLON: In that case, Mr. Chairman, I suggest that Next

year, we are planning to have a meeting of the DAPs, to go over

the presentation that Richard just did, and Graciela, on the

models, and, if the plan is implemented by that time, also we would

address that, but I believe that the models and the spiny lobster

could be done in let’s say a two-hour virtual meeting, or three,

and it would be a matter of coordinating with Sarah and the chairs

of the DAPs to have this meeting, hopefully maybe in late February

or the beginning of March, so that we will be ready to provide

input to the team that is working.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Miguel. We have John Walter in the

queue.

JOHN WALTER: Thank you, Mr. Chair. One of the things that we do

need to separate here is the assessment, which right here is using

the best data that’s available at the time of the assessment, and,

importantly, is raised to a higher tier than previous assessments,

and so we’re getting something we haven’t gotten before, which is

the status of the stock.

This is a big Actually, it’s a fairly substantial improvement

here over our previous treatments for this species, and then what

we’re all hearing, and have in the works, are a lot of improvements

in the basic data collection, and so we’re going to be getting

better data, because we’ve put the processes in place.

What that means is that the assessment was using data that was

only from the commercial fishery, and the recreational fishery

It was assumed that either part of that commercial fishery or some

unknown and constant baseline.

If that is growing in the future, we should be getting that

information and taking it into account, and then, if it does indeed

be proved that it’s a constant say 10 percent of the commercial,

then it doesn’t change the stock status. However, we would also

monitor the ACL by the data that goes into it, and I think that’s

the question for how the ACL gets monitored. If there is an

additional set of landings that haven’t been counted in the

assessment, how we treat them needs to be considered, and that, I

think, is a question that is still an open one. Thanks.

MARCOS HANKE: We have Roy. Thank you very much, John.

ROY CRABTREE: Thanks, Marcos. Thanks, Sarah, for the

presentation, and I think it was well done, and I just wanted to

say that I agree with Carlos. I think my preference is the constant

ACL, where it’s averaged over a series of years, and I think, that

way, people know what’s coming and what is expected, and then we

put that in place, and then hopefully, in a couple of years, we

get an update, or an interim, assessment of it, and then we can

come in and reset things based on that.

Maybe when we do the update, or the interim, assessment, whatever

comes next, it could better address some of these questions that

we have now with respect to landings and recreational landings and 1 things, but I think my preference will be towards the setting a

constant catch level. Thank you.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Roy. Miguel, am I missing anybody on

the queue?

MIGUEL

Not that I can see here.

MARCOS HANKE: Are there any other questions?

MIGUEL ROLON: One question is if you would like to Even though

Sarah said that this is not the time for it, you can give the group

that is working an indication of the preference of the council,

and so if the council, for example, prefers to follow Roy’s advice,

this is a good time to say it, and so they will look at it and

discuss the rationale. Then, when we present this to the DAPs

next year, they will have more information as to how to proceed.

MARCOS HANKE: Yes. We have Jocelyn requesting for a turn to

speak.

JOCELYN D’AMBROSIO: Thank you. Before we moved on, I just wanted

to circle back to something that John had mentioned about ACL

monitoring, and so, because this process We didn’t have

recreational landings, and there were various assumptions, as John

indicated, how they would be included in the model, but we didn’t

have numbers to plug in.

When we monitor the landings, we would be monitoring the commercial

landings and comparing those to the ACLs, and, as we got

recreational data, those would be next steps to reevaluate that

process, but, right now, this process would just involve looking

at those commercial landings and comparing them to the ACLs and

then making decisions about any accountability measures based on

that available information, and so I just wanted to clarify that

process.

MARCOS HANKE: Yes. Thank you very much, Jocelyn. We are all

aware, and I would like to make a comment that I was inclined,

since we started this discussion, to go with the constant numbers,

but, with this information and this presentation that Sarah just

gave, which is a great presentation, I think there is other

considerations that I need to analyze, in terms of geometric and

arithmetic effects on the formulas and so on, and I don’t feel

strong on either way, either though, originally, I was inclined to

do the constant approach. Anybody else who would like to say

something?

CARLOS FARCHETTE: I just want to get a little clarity here. In

Table 2.3, constant catch OFL and ABC, St. Croix has the OFL of

167,897 pounds and an ABC of 148,071. That’s a reduction of about

19,826 pounds, and is that for uncertainty? I think Richard had

mentioned something about that number, but I’m not sure what it

meant, if that’s uncertainty or not, because they’re still asking,

under proposed alternatives, for a 0.95 or a 0.90 or equal to, and

so, if you’re already reducing by 19,000 pounds, and then you still

want to reduce again by 0.95, that’s another uncertainty? I’m not

clear on that.

SARAH STEPHENSON: There were two instances where numbers were

reduced, and so the OFLs were reduced to the ABCs, and that

incorporated scientific uncertainty and the council’s risk of

overfishing, and so that was one part. Then the second part

reduces the ABCs to the ACLs, and that accounts for management

uncertainty, and so those are the options that are included in the

amendment, either the no reduction, the 5 percent reduction, or

the 10 percent reduction. Those are for management uncertainty,

and that’s what the council gets to decide.

Those other uncertainties, the scientific uncertainty and, of

course, the council’s risk of overfishing, they were previously

decided and are now included in that Tier 3 of the control rule

process from estimating the ABCs from the OFLs, and so that part

is already done.

At this point, you have ABCs recommended from the SSC, either the

constant catch ones or the variable catch ones, and now the council

will decide, from either one of those buckets, how much they want

to reduce for management uncertainty to get to the ACLs. Does

that answer your question?

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Yes, it does, and so, in the end, each island

will be deciding what alternative they prefer, right, and it’s not

going to be one for everybody?

SARAH

CARLOS

That’s correct.

Okay. All right. That’s cool. Thanks.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Carlos. If I don’t hear any other

questions, I think we are ready to move on, unless Sarah wants to

make any questions to the group of anything else that she needs to

hear from us.

SARAH STEPHENSON: So it sounds like that, for now, we’ll stick

with maybe the council’s initial preferred Not preferred 1 approach, but you preferred the constant catch over the variable 2 catch, and that’s what was stated at the August meeting, and I’ve

heard that from Roy and Carlos at this meeting.

Obviously, the other approach, the variable catch approach, will

still be in the amendment, and you can still consider it at the

next council meeting, but, for now, we might go ahead and kind of

put that as preliminary preferred, just to give the IPT something

to really compare and maybe have a feel for how the council is

going to go. Is there a similar kind of feeling for using a single

year or landings or ramp-up to a three-year average, or do you

want to just wait and see the analysis in April? That’s my question

to the council, please.

MARCOS HANKE: Anybody?

CARLOS FARCHETTE: I would prefer a three-year average, but I’m

open for discussion.

MARCOS HANKE: Anybody from St. Thomas?

TONY BLANCHARD: I would have to agree with Carlos. I would

probably prefer a three-year average and a constant, but I also

agree with Miguel that this should go to the DAP and hear what

comes out of that discussion.

MIGUEL ROLON: Marcos, I have Roy Crabtree asking for a turn, a

raised hand.

MARCOS HANKE: Yes. Go ahead, Roy.

ROY CRABTREE: I think I’m agreeing with Carlos and Tony. I think

we should use an average landings over some period of time, and so

I would ramp-up to probably three years, but, if not three, then

two years, but I think that helps smooth things out some, and it

also makes sense, to me, to I know this is getting in the weeds,

but, for staff purposes, the geometric means seems a better way to

go, to me, because it tends to smooth things out a little bit, and

it’s less affected by If you do it for three years, it’s less

affected by having one year real extreme compared to the other

two, and I know that’s getting in the weeds a little bit, but it

does make sense to me to use an average, given all the uncertainty

we have about what’s going on.

MIGUEL ROLON: Marcos, you have Nicole Angeli.

NICOLE ANGELI: The preliminary preference that we have is for

this to go through the DAP for the districts, but, for the

discussion today, a three-year, at least a three-year, geometric

mean and constant would be our preference. We anticipate ramping

up data collection over the next five years, and so, for now, I

think that should be the best option, but that also gives us a lot

of time to speak about this within our districts.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you. Vanessa, would you like to have your

input in here?

VANESSA RAMIREZ: Yes. Thank you, Marcos. I am on the side of

Carlos and Tony. I prefer also for the three years. Thanks.

MARCOS HANKE: Any other council member who would like to speak?

I would like to say that I agree with the group, and I don’t have

any objections to that, and the geometric Like Roy said, the

combination of the geometric approach seems to work better. For

me, it’s the first time I’ve seen it, that approach, and, so far,

I agree with that. I need to analyze it a little more, even though

it makes sense. Do you need a motion from us, Sarah?

MIGUEL ROLON: Marcos, at this time, you can do it just by

consensus. What Sarah wanted was to have an indication of the

trend that you want to see, but the You should allow the DAP to

also look at this. Maybe they have an idea that we are not seeing

here, but, from previous meetings, and this meeting, the sense is

that the consensus would be to have the fixed ACL and the three-

year average for the spiny lobster, and I believe that Sarah can

take that, but I will ask Sarah if you want to have a stronger

indication from the council, and then a motion and a vote would do

it at this time.

SARAH STEPHENSON: I have captured everybody’s rationale for their

preferred at this point in time, and I think that’s good enough

for today. Thank you very much.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Sarah. Thank you very much. Let’s go

for a break now, a five-minute break. It’s 3:07, and we will come

back. Five-minute break.

(Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.)

MARCOS HANKE: Good afternoon, everyone. It’s 3:09 p.m., and we

are ready to start the meeting again. The next item on the agenda

is the gear amendment, and the presentation will be done by Maria

Lopez.

MARIA LOPEZ: Good afternoon, everybody. This is Maria Lopez with

NOAA Fisheries Southeast Regional Office, Caribbean Branch, and

I’m going to be talking to you about an options paper that we

submitted for the briefing book that is dealing with the

modifications to the buoy gear definition for the harvest of

managed reef fish in federal waters.

This came from a motion that was presented by the council at the

August meeting. This options paper is going to be addressing the

buoy gear definition for federal waters in Puerto Rico, St. Croix,

St. Thomas, and St. John, and so it will be an amendment to each

one of those fishery management plans, as the council decided last

time.

As an overview, in Puerto Rico and the USVI, fishermen harvesting

deepwater snappers, and I’m referring to queen and cardinal

snappers and other snappers that are in shallower waters, such as

silk, blackfin, and vermilion, they have traditionally used a gear

type locally known as cala con boya in Puerto Rico and as deep-

drop buoy gear in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

For example, this is a preferred gear type on the west coast of

Puerto Rico to fish for deepwater snapper, and it’s a gear that is

used to fish between 100 and 250 fathoms. In Puerto Rico, there

could be up to approximately 200 fishers using this gear type,

commercial fishers, and, in the USVI, I do not have that

information of how many fishers are using this gear, but that will

be part of the information that we will be collecting as part of

this amendment.

Also, this locally-used commercial fishing gear type is very

similar to the buoy gear defined in federal regulations. As they

apply to Caribbean fisheries that I just described, it differs in

the number of hooks that are allowed to be used with the gear, and

this is a discussion that the council had during the August 2020

meeting, where the similarities and the differences between the

definition for buoy gear that is included in the federal

regulations were compared to how that gear is used locally in both

Puerto Rico and the USVI.

During that meeting, it was discussed with the council that the

use of any gear not listed as authorized for the fishery is

prohibited by federal regulations. Therefore, this gear type, as

currently used, cannot be used by fishermen participating in the

commercial reef fish fishery until it is added as an allowable

gear type under the island-based FMPs or until the definition of

buoy gear is revised, and so this is what we are here for right

now.

At the 170th Caribbean Council meeting, and this was in August, the

council requested staff to begin work on amending the island-based

FMPs to allow for the use of that specific hook-and-line gear.

The council also tasked us to consider in the amendment whether

gill and trammel nets, or any other applicable gear should be

included as authorized gear types when fishing for certain species

managed under each of the FMPs, and this was particularly due to

species that were recently added, for example some of the pelagic

species.

Since then, NMFS and council staff met and agreed to request the

council to look at these two items separately, to speed up the

process, so that the buoy gear issue can be addressed promptly,

and so staff prepared a draft options paper for your consideration

that addresses only the buoy gear definition at this time.

If the council agrees, we will discuss and move forward, and, when

I say move forward, we will be creating an interdisciplinary

planning team, which is composed of NMFS and council staff from

diverse fields that are responsible for drafting the amendments,

and then the IPT will draft an amendment that could be If the

IPT agrees, it could be brought to the April meeting.

This options paper, how I’m going to be presenting it here is only

going to address that buoy gear definition, and then, in a separate

amendment in the near future, that staff can start working with

immediately, other gear types will be addressed.

Just to provide an overview of what are the authorized gears for

the reef fish fishery, and this is something that was discussed at

the August council meeting by Jocelyn D’Ambrosio from General

Counsel, and this is included in the island-based FMPs, and it’s

the same for the three plans. For the reef fish fishery, the

recreational fishery, the gear types that are included as allowed

types are dip net, handline, rod-and-reel, slurp gun, spear, and

trap and pot. The definitions for some of this are included in

the federal regulations, and we would be happy to provide those

definitions, if you would like to, later on.

For the commercial fishery, the commercial longline and hook-and-

line fishery particularly, there are two types of gears that are

included, the longline and the hook-and-line. This amendment would

only deal with the commercial longline hook-and-line fishery,

those gear types that are included within, and so, under the hook

and line component of the gear type, there are automatic reel,

bandit gear, buoy gear, handline, longline, and rod-and-reel.

This amendment would modify the definition of buoy gear that is

included under that fishery, and so this action would pertain only

to the commercial sector, because, as you can see from this table,

the buoy gear is an allowed gear for that sector only and not for

the recreational sector.

The definition for buoy gear is going to be in the next slide.

However, managed reef fish, what we’re referring to as managed

reef fish, are included in Appendix A of each one of the island-

based FMPs, and it includes all deepwater snappers that are

included within each plan. At the end of this presentation, I

have included slides that list which ones of those species are in

each one of the plans.

This is the definition of buoy gear that is included in our federal

regulations, and I am not going to read the whole thing, because

this is something that was already discussed during the last

council meeting, and, based on testimony from council members and

participants, it was determined that the only difference between

the buoy gear that is listed in the regulations and the locally-

used buoy gear is in the number of hooks.

The buoy gear defined in the federal regulations, at 50 CFR Part

622, cannot contain more than ten hooks connected between the buoy

and the terminal end, while the local deepwater reef fish buoy

gear typically can contain up to twenty-five hooks, and that varies

by island, connected between the buoy and the terminal end.

Therefore, as I mentioned earlier, this gear type cannot be used

by fishermen participating in the commercial reef fish fishery

until it is added as an allowable gear type under the island-based

FMPs or until that definition of buoy gear is revised.

This is a comparison of the buoy gear in the federal regulations

versus local deepwater buoy gear, and, in the left column, you can

see all of the items that are included in that definition and then

what is in the regulations versus what it is used in Puerto Rico

and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The particularities of each one of

the islands is something that, when we do the amendment and we

describe these fisheries, we will include that information in

there.

However, from the discussion from the August council meeting, the

number of hooks that were The differences that I just listed,

Puerto Rico traditionally uses between fifteen and twenty-five 1 hooks. My understanding is that the configuration that is set up 2 to use more hooks is usually used to fish for, for example, queen

snapper or some of the deeper-water snappers.

From some of the testimony that we heard last time, the fishers

were saying that it was not practical to use more hooks, due to

the depth, and these are fisheries that are conducted with high

currents, and so there is a very specific way that the setups are

done, depending on the currents in the areas.

In terms of the weight on the terminal end, the federal regulations

say that you cannot have more than ten pounds. In Puerto Rico and

the USVI, fishers mentioned that they usually use between eight

and ten pounds, and some of the fishers may use variations of less

than that, but, typically, it’s ten pounds.

In terms of the dropline construction, it needs to be rope or

monofilament, but it must not be cable or wire, and, in Puerto

Rico and the USVI, it’s a similar construction, using usually

monofilament. The length of the dropline cannot be greater than

two-times the depth of the water being fished, and this is

something that is similar for both Puerto Rico and the USVI.

Hook placement, all hooks must be attached the dropline no more

than thirty feet from the weighted terminal end, and, in both of

the islands, this is similar, within the range. Some of the

comments were that, if there was too much space in between the

hooks, it became not effective fishing.

The hook connection to the dropline, hooks may be attached directly

to the dropline or attached as snoods, and there is some text in

there about the definition of each one of them, where each snood

has a single terminal hook, or as gangions, where each gangion has

a single terminal hook. Based on testimony from the council and

fishers, it’s similar. Lastly, the gear connection, it cannot be

connected to other gear or to the vessel, and fishers and council

members indicated that this was similar. The gear is designed to

be released in the water and detached from the boat.

I took this from the Caribbean Council after-the-meeting

documents, and this was presented during the August meeting, and

this is a representation of the local buoy gear used in Puerto

Rico from Edwin Font, and I added the source here to the right, if

you would like to look at it and a description that was provided

by Mr. Font during the August council meeting, and you can go to

that website.

With that overview, we have done a draft purpose and need. This

is a draft purpose and need, because, obviously, it still needs

input from the interdisciplinary planning team that will be working

on the amendment, if we are going to move forward. However, we

wanted to put this in here to provide an idea of what the amendment

will address.

The potential purposes is to modify the definition of buoy gear as

it applies to the commercial sector of the longline and hook-and-

line fishery for managed reef fish in each of the island-based

FMPs to allow for the use of a specific buoy gear type

traditionally used in the U.S. Caribbean to fish for deepwater

fish, snappers.

What is the need? The need is to ensure that commercial fishermen

can use the gear traditionally used to harvest deepwater reef fish

in the U.S. Caribbean. Basically, what this amendment will do is

redefine that gear so that it can be used the way that it’s

configured as of now.

Here are two potential options, and these are just options, and

these can change, obviously, based on input from the council, and

so the first option is what we traditionally include in amendments,

and it’s the no action, and the no action is what is the current

situation, and what is out there without doing anything else, and

so the no action would be that the current gear types that are

authorized under the commercial longline hook-and-line fishery for

managed reef fish in the FMP, which are automatic reel, bandit

gear, buoy gear, handline, longline, and rod-and-reel, would

remain as specified in 50 CFR Part 622, which is the federal

regulations. The current definition of buoy gear would be

retained.

The next two bullets is describing what this means if you take no

action. It means that no changes would be made to the list of

allowable gear types or how they are defined under the commercial

hook-and-line fishery for managed reef fish, and that gear type

that is currently used in Puerto Rico and the USVI to fish for

deepwater reef fish would continue to not be allowed in federal

waters to harvest managed reef fish.

Then fishermen will need to make arrangements to fish under the

current definition, which would require them to reduce the number

of hooks used to ten, and so this is what is the current situation

if nothing else is done.

Then, to address this, as we discussed during the past August

meeting, the council is interested in allowing the buoy gear to be

part of the managed reef fish fishery, and Option 2 would be to

modify the definition of buoy gear as it applies to the longline

and hook-and-line fishery for managed reef fish, to allow the use

of up to twenty-five hooks connected between the buoy and the

terminal end.

This option, what it would do is to modify the definition for the

fishery so that it can include that configuration of the

traditionally-used buoy gear type from Puerto Rico and the USVI.

It will not change the list of allowable gear types, but it will

just change that definition, and that last item that I added in

there, in the future, if a federal permit is desired, the buoy

gear for managed Caribbean reef fish could be redefined to be

specific to deepwater snappers, and this is not done at this time,

because we don’t have a federal permit, but this is something that,

if the council in the future would like to look at, and it has

been discussed in the past, then we can have a specific definition

for that.

Then there could be an Option 3, if needed, and it could include

a different number of hooks for evaluation purposes, but this is

something that, once the IPT meets and starts developing the

amendment, then it could be included then or not, but the bottom

line is that the council requested the use of up to twenty-five

hooks by motion, and this is included in these options.

The next steps will be for the council to decide if they want to

move forward with this action, as described in this presentation,

and so the way that we are envisioning this is to be a very short

one-action amendment that the team could put together so that it’s

ready so that, by the time the island-based FMPs are implemented,

this amendment is very well advanced in its development, so it can

be put into place quickly, just kind of like the spiny lobster

amendment, where, even before the island-based FMPs are effective,

the teams are already working with it, so that it can be put in

place as soon as possible.

If the council decides to move forward, then, as I mentioned

earlier, an IPT will be formed to draft the amendment, and, if the

IPT agrees, and, obviously, it will depend on timing considerations

and workload, but that draft amendment could be presented for

council consideration at the spring 2021 meeting, and so this would

be an amendment to the three island-based FMPs, and, obviously,

each one of the island-based FMPs operates independently.

If there is something that any of the different islands would like

to consider, would like to choose differently, we will, obviously,

put that in the amendment. This is the last slide, and, if anybody

has any questions, I will take them now.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Maria. That was a great presentation,

and thank you for hearing what the fishermen, especially Pauco and

others, brought to the table. Are there questions from the group?

I have, after everybody finishes, a few things to say.

MIGUEL ROLON: Marcos, I have one, before we go into the full

discussion, for Maria. Just for the record, Maria, this has to be

an amendment to the three island-based FMPs, or could it be an

amendment to the present regulations that we have defined for the

gear that are allowed?

MARIA LOPEZ: I believe that we discussed some of that last time,

and the advantages of doing it right now is we just get it done

through the island-based FMPs. I think, if it would have been the

difference in time between what we have right now and when the

island-based FMPs would be implemented, it would make more sense,

but remember that this is not something that will happen in one

month.

We still have to go through the regular amendment process, and

that takes some time, and so, by the time that this would be ready,

and this is why we’re trying to start it as soon as possible, it’s

very possible that the island-based FMPs are already going to be

effective, and so it will be better, in my opinion, just to go

ahead and do this for the island-based FMPs.

MIGUEL ROLON: Maria, would you need a motion indicating that the

council wishes at this meeting, or would you like for the IPT to

work on it?

MARIA LOPEZ: I don’t think so. I think the council already had

a motion saying that they wanted to develop an amendment to address

this. The only difference in here is that staff agreed to separate

this into two amendments, just because this is a situation that

should be addressed as soon as possible, and having an amendment

with several actions could take, possibly, longer, and so that

would be the other thing.

Addressing the other gears is still in the works, and that’s

something that we have talked about before, to bring something

during the spring council meeting, and so it will still happen,

but it’s just not We would prefer if we can just kind of do

this short amendment right now, while we, in the background,

continue working on the other part, because that’s going to need

a little bit more digging into, the historical use of gears, for

examples.

MIGUEL ROLON: Marcos, what Maria is saying is very important, in

terms of the timeframe that we have for 2021, because remember

this amendment has to be prepared and submitted to the council.

Once you agree that this is what you want, then it goes to public

hearings, and you come back from public hearings, and then you

have another meeting, and there you will finalize the whole

process, and so we are talking about, if you agree with what Maria

is proposing, we will have this amendment and present it to the

council at the April meeting, and they will go to public hearings

after that meeting. Then, maybe at the August meeting, we will be

able to have a final decision for implementation.

MARCOS HANKE: I am so happy to see this presentation and to see

this possibility coming up finally. Thank you, Maria. I would

like to hear from the council members if they are all in agreement

with the pathway that Maria just described to us. Go ahead,

Carlos.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: I went out, and I spoke to a few of the deep-

drop fishermen here on St. Croix, and they do agree that they want

to change the part To amend the part about the ten hooks to the

maximum twenty-two or twenty-five, and most of them are twenty-

two over here on St. Croix.

However, a big issue with the fishermen here that I interviewed is

regarding having the first hook thirty feet from the terminal

weighted end, and one of them used me as an example, and he said

go over there and stand thirty feet away from me, and, when I did

that, he said, okay, now pretend that I am holding a plate of fried

fish and rice and beans and now eat.

I started to laugh, because there’s no way that I could reach that,

and he said that they fish a maximum of three feet from the terminal

end, where the first hook starts, and, if you fish at thirty feet

from the terminal end, what you really are going to be catching

are sharks and swordfish. You’ve got to remember that vermilion

and silk are caught in around 400 feet of water, while queen

snapper is caught anywhere from 800 down to 1,800 feet.

He fishes mostly at around 1,200 or 1,400 feet of water, and he

said that the fish will not go all the way up to thirty feet just

to grab a bait, and so I don’t know if an amendment can be done to

that terminal end description of the first hook and the terminal

end, to include that in the amendment.

MARCOS HANKE: Carlos, Maria wants to talk to this part. Maria

and then Nelson.

MARIA LOPEZ: Carlos, I’m sorry, and I think that must be a

misinterpretation of what it says, and I apologize if, when you

and I talked, that’s how it was understood. The regulations just

say that all hooks must be attached to the dropline no more than

thirty feet from the weighted terminal end, and it’s not the last

hook, and I apologize for that, if it was misinterpreted. It’s

not supposed to be like that.

It’s as long as all the hooks are within thirty feet from the

weighted terminal end. I believe that’s how it’s done, currently,

and I don’t know if any of the other fishermen Maybe Nelson can

corroborate that, because I talked to Nelson yesterday about that,

and I believe that’s what you have told me in the past as well,

and so we’ll make sure that, in the amendment, that it’s clarified,

so that nobody has any confusion about how it’s done.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Maria. I’m pretty sure that you are

right. Nelson.

NELSON CRESPO: Maria, you are correct, and this is about thirty

feet from the end of the line to the weight, and this is a good

start, but I think we have to take into consideration Because

the recreational use electric reels for jigging, and sometimes for

fishing in deep waters, and we have to be specific when you are

going to evaluate the regulations, to be clear that this is going

to be a commercial fishing gear. I don’t know how you’re going to

address that, but it’s only to make it clear for the consideration

of the recreational use of the electric fishing gears, too.

MARCOS HANKE: Nelson, we lost you.

NELSON CRESPO: I’ve got an internet problem here, but the

recreational use electric reels, and they use it for deep waters

too, and so I don’t know how you are going to address that issue.

MARCOS HANKE: Yes, and may I, because I work with recreational

fishermen, and I have been involved in this discussion for a long

time, and I totally agree with Nelson that this should be a

commercial fishing gear, because they have other ways to fish

recreationally, but not with a buoy gear, and that’s a commercial

fishing gear. Maria, you asked for a turn to speak?

MARIA LOPEZ: Thank you, Nelson and Marcos, for that comment. I

think I mentioned that in the beginning, but the buoy gear is an

allowed gear only for commercial, under federal regulations, and

my understanding is that, in territorial regulations from Puerto

Rico and the USVI, this is not a gear that is allowed for

recreational use either, and so that is why the scope of this

amendment is only dealing with the commercial sector, because, in

the regulations, it’s not listed as an allowed gear, and so any

changes that we do for this gear will be applicable only to

whatever is allowed, and that’s only for the commercial.

Now, if there is any possibility of confusion between this gear

and other gears that are being used, that’s something that we can

definitely talk about, and we will have an enforcement component

in the IPT that should be able to provide more information about

how to deal with this. Does that kind of answer the question or

add a little bit to the comment?

MARCOS HANKE: Yes, and I think it was very clear on your statement.

Thank you, Maria. Vanessa.

VANESSA RAMIREZ: Thank you, Marcos. Thank you, Maria, for the

presentation. I think that this option that you presented, Option

2, practically involves all the efforts that Pauco has been making

for all these years. I remember that the first time that I heard

about the problem that he had was in 2016, and so I have to say

that we should move on this, and, also, thanks to Pauco, because

not many fishermen come up to here to present the problems and

make things change, and so thank you, Maria, and I hope that this

can be solved soon. Thanks.

MARCOS HANKE: Tony, go ahead.

TONY BLANCHARD: I think we should I agree with Vanessa, and we

should move forward with Alternative 2, Option 2, because this

gear is already being used, and I don’t really see why, if it is

already being used, why we just can’t adopt it. I think we should

move forward with the amendment.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Tony. Thank you very much. I don’t

know if Pauco is on the line. Pauco, are you there?

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: He is on the line.

MIGUEL ROLON: He has to unmute his mic.

EDWIN FONT: I have only one question, and, if it’s possible, I

want the answer in Spanish. (The rest of Mr. Font’s comments were

in Spanish and not transcribed.)

MARIA LOPEZ: (Ms. Lopez’s response was in Spanish and not

transcribed.)

MIGUEL ROLON: (Mr. Rolon’s comment were in Spanish and not

transcribed.)

MARCOS HANKE: We finally are doing something officially, a remedy

or something, and we have a good rationale behind it, with the

input from the fishermen, to make it work, which was the historical

request from them, and we are on the right track, Pauco. Maria,

was there somebody else?

MIGUEL ROLON: Vanessa.

VANESSA RAMIREZ: Thank you, Miguel, but, practically, what I

wanted to say, you already said it in Spanish for Pauco, and so

thanks for that. It was just clarifying to him about the situation

that, right now, we are in the process, but he’s not available to

fish in federal waters, not yet. Thanks.

MARCOS HANKE: Maria.

MARIA LOPEZ: If you want to use the gear in federal waters, you

can always use ten hooks, because that’s pretty much the difference

in the definition. However, as everybody said, we’re working on

that.

The other thing is that this second part of the amendment, where

we’re going to be looking at the gears, it’s very important,

because one of the exercises that our team is going to be doing is

actually looking at that historical use of the gears, the current

use of the gears, to make sure that something like this doesn’t

happen, and so we want to make sure that the fisheries are defined

the way that they are really conducted in the Caribbean, and so

just bear with us for a little bit, and have a little patience,

and we will be contacting you to get some information, because you

are the persons that are using this gear, and have used this gear

traditionally, and you are the best persons to tell us what to

include and what to address and how this should go. I’m going to

say it in Spanish for Pauco. (The rest of Ms. Lopez’s comments

were in Spanish and not transcribed.)

MARCOS HANKE: Gracias, Maria. Thank you to everybody. We are a

little behind schedule. Maria, do you need anything else from us,

or we are okay?

MARIA LOPEZ: I believe that all council members agree that we

move forward with this amendment as presented in here, and then I

don’t need anything else, but you let me know.

MARCOS HANKE: Yes, I think you can proceed, and I think it’s very

clear. Graciela.

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: One thing that we need to talk about, in

the very near future, is the lack of information that we have

regarding the way that most of the gears are fished, because there

has not been an update to the 1980s or early 1990s description of

the fishing gears, and so that is something that needs to be done

as soon as possible for each of the three islands. Thank you.

MARCOS HANKE: Maria, I just want to make a comment, following-up

on what you requested from us, bringing the discussion of the other

gears for the spring meeting, on the follow-up meetings, that is

appropriate, and I’m sure that the council has interest in keep

discussing and revising and discussing the rest of the gears after

this amendment, specifically for the deepwater snapper. We are

all set with this presentation, and thank you, Maria.

MIGUEL ROLON: Before you leave this, maybe make this very clear

for the record. What Maria is saying is that we will go ahead

with this proposal and finish it, and that will be in the spring.

Then, following that, we will go into the other gears, and that’s

where Graciela’s comment She mentioned that we need to update,

and we will proceed to do that, but, at this time, there is only

one thing that the council is going to do, and that’s to add

fifteen more hooks to the line that is allowed to be used by

commercial fishermen in the EEZ.

MARCOS HANKE: Okay. Let’s keep going. The next item on the

agenda is Ecosystem-Based Fishery Management Technical Advisory

MIGUEL ROLON: Mr. Chairman, Orian Tzadik is going to give that

presentation on behalf of Sennai Habtes, because Dr. Habtes is now

finishing his semester at the university.

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: Orian, this is just going to be a brief

summary report, right?

ORIAN TZADIK: Yes. I don’t actually have a presentation. As

Graciela just said, this is going to be a very quick summary, and

so good afternoon, everyone. My name is Orian Tzadik, and I’m

presenting today, as Miguel just said, on behalf of the EBFM TAP

Chair, Sennai Habtes, who is unable to attend this meeting right

now.

I just wanted to start off by talking a little bit about the

Technical Advisory Panel activities recently. As you have seen

through the presentations from both the DAPs and the SSC, the EBFM

TAP is interested in the ecosystem models, the conceptual models,

that are being put together by these different stakeholder groups.

The process has started with the SSC and the DAPs, and the SSC, as

Richard presented earlier, is almost finished, and they are

planning to finish at their next meeting in early February, and

the DAPs have done their part to complete their ecosystem

conceptual models at this point. What’s left to do is the analysis

of those models, and that’s going to be a lot longer.

There is a meeting scheduled that is a joint SSC and EBFM TAP

meeting that’s going take place from February 3 to February 5,

and, at that meeting, we’re going to be listening to several other

researchers in the region that are doing ecosystem work as well,

and so we’ll be getting updates.

The first of those updates will come from Miguel Figuerola, but

we’ll also be hearing from Mandy Karnauskas and Kelly Montenero,

who are completing the ecosystem status report for the U.S.

Caribbean, and we’ll also hear from J.J. Cruz-Motta, who will

update us on the Lenfest work and the SEAMAP work, and this will

be in an effort to try and bring all the different stakeholder

groups to the table, and, like I said, we’ve started with the SSC

and the DAP, and then the TAP will be hearing from these different

scientist groups, and we will also be interested to hear of any

other groups that are working on ecosystem work in the region.

Once all of that is completed, we’re also going to reach out to

several other stakeholder groups, and I will mention that in just

a minute, and so, at that meeting in early February, Miguel

Figuerola will be presenting his work on the Puerto Rico CRIMP

dataset that he has analyzed, and the EBFM TAP and the SSC together

will discuss whether that information and those analyses can be

brought into the ecosystem conceptual modeling, and, more

importantly, potentially to the FEP.

As I understand it, Miguel is also organizing mesophotic data, and

he’s been working, I believe, with DPNR to collect Virgin Islands

information as well. After we hear from the scientists working in

the region on ecosystem work, we are also going to solicit other

conceptual models, ecosystem conceptual models, from several

different stakeholder groups.

Those stakeholder groups are going to include coastal businesses,

fishermen who are outside of the DAPs, environmental NGOs, and

academics, and, for all four of those groups, we will solicit

ecosystem models on each of the three islands, and we will be

getting groups together to do the same kind of conceptual modeling

exercises that the DAPs and the SSC both did.

We hope, by doing all of this and including all these different

stakeholder groups, that we’re going to be advocating an inclusive

approach, and we’ll be able to have all these different viewpoints

represented in the eventual fishery ecosystem plan.

The last thing that I want to present to this group today is to do

with a project that is specific to the EBFM TAP and the FEP, and

it’s going to be headed up by Liajay Rivera of the council staff,

and that is going to include cataloging all the different marine

managed areas outside of the council purview, and so, for example,

finding details of all the other areas under management in

different jurisdictions, jurisdictions such as the Coast Guard or

the Department of the Interior or things like that.

We’re going to try and find those Or Liajay is going to try and

find those management plans, put them all together, and create

some sort of reference, so that we’re dealing with the entire

ecosystem efforts that are under different jurisdictions.

That was the update that I had for everybody today, and I’m sorry

that I don’t have a presentation, but I will be happy to answer

questions the best I can. Otherwise, I would encourage everybody

should have more for you early in the meetings next year.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Orian. Thank you for the update. We

have space for two questions, to keep on the schedule. Are there

any questions? Hearing none, thank you, Orian. We will keep

moving. The next presentation is the St. Croix Territory/Federal

Regulations and Carlos Farchette.

ST. CROIX TERRITORY/FEDERAL COMPATIBLE FISHING REGULATIONS

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Natalia,

and I will have you switch over the slides for me. I think it’s

easier for me to do that. All right. I know, a couple of meetings

ago, I spoke about starting the discussion on compatible

regulations for the St. Croix Island-Based Fishery Management

Plan.

Some of the topics that I wanted to address, and I know there’s a

lot, and, before I go any further, I want to again reiterate all

the help that Maria and Sarah have been giving me, and it’s worth

repeating every time. They’ve done an excellent job of the table

that they worked on for me, and, for that, I thank them very much.

Some of the topics that I want to talk about is gear, fish, and

spiny lobster. We had a meeting, not too long ago, a virtual

meeting, with Maria and Sarah and Nicole Angeli, the Director of

Fish and Wildlife, and Madeline, who is a new employee, and I’m

sure that, maybe tomorrow, or today, Nicole will introduce her and

let you all know what her role is going to be in the division, and

it has to do with either policy coordinating or policy, one of

those things.

When it comes to the impact When we start to discuss compatible

regulations, there is going to be some kind of impact to the

fishermen, and a simple one that I can come up with is, right now,

if we overrun an ACL, that particular species that has been overrun

is closed for whatever duration of time is going to be required

for it to recover, but it will not affect territorial waters.

Take, for example, what happened years ago with spiny lobster. It

ended up being overrun on St. Croix, but the overrun was only ten

days, and the overrun only affected Lang Bank on St. Croix, because

that’s the only area, federally, that you can dive for lobster on

St. Croix.

Things like that is going to impact the fishermen. Also, the

species. I think lane I would have to look in the handbook,

but lane and some other species that are closed for a certain

amount of time in federal waters is still open on St. Croix,

because the depth of water that they fish for them falls within

the territorial limits.

Then we have the significance of the difference with federal

regulations, and there is a lot of language that needs to be

addressed on both sides of the aisle, when it come to the

fishermen’s handbook for the territory and also for the federal

side, and I don’t want to take up too much time, but we’re going

to be discussing this a little later on again.

Also, the type of policy change that’s going to be needed, whether

or not it’s something that can be easily signed-off on by

Commissioner Oriol or whether or not it’s something in there that

has to go through the legislature for approval.

Here are some of the examples here. Fish trap construction and

mesh size, when it comes to the mesh size of fish traps, in St.

Croix, it says that The regulations booklet states that all

traps must have a minimum of 1.5 hexagonal mesh as the smallest

mesh on two sides of the fish trap, but it also states that all

fish traps and mesh size of at least two inches square or a hex 1 two inches between opposite sides of the hexagon is the smallest

mesh size, and so, in the federal side, it explains it a little

differently.

We have a document here signed by Governor de Jongh where it

explains about all traps would meet In 2000, all traps would

meet the two-inch minimum size, but, if you measure a hexagonal

inch-and-a-half wire at its widest point, it’s like two-and-a-

sixteenth of an inch, and so, although it meets the criteria, I

think the wording is where the issue is.

Also, when it comes to buoy markings and trap lines. In federal

waters, if you have a string of traps, you need two buoys, one at

the front and one at the end. While in territorial waters, you’re

only required to have one buoy, and that’s also language stuff

that we can probably take a look at and change.

The escape panels, I think we need a little clarity on the design

of the panels. I know, in federal waters, it’s eight-inch-by-

eight-inch, and I believe it’s also in territorial waters. I lost

the I hope I didn’t lose everybody, but I lost the screen.

MARCOS HANKE: I can hear you, Carlos, but I don’t see the screen.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Okay. Well, anyway, I’m going to continue,

because this is going to take a lot more discussion than today,

and it’s going to take quite a few years to bring this all to

fruition.

MARCOS HANKE: Go ahead, Carlos.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: We also have the issue with the spiny lobster

tail weight, where, in the Virgin Islands, there’s a six-ounce

minimum, but, in federal waters, it’s 5.926 ounces, and that’s

also a language Something in the language that can be fixed

pretty easily, and I don’t think anybody would have an issue with

coming down to whatever point, but we also have issues with using

spiny lobsters as attractants.

I don’t think the federal The CFR does not talk about spiny

lobster juveniles or being used as a attractants in the fish traps.

However, in the territorial waters, they’re allowed to be retained

in a fish trap as an attractant, and that’s something that we need

to take a look at.

Size limit, when it comes to fish, yellowtail snapper. I’ve been

speaking to quite a bit of fishermen, and they do agree that a

twelve-inch snapper is not an issue that they would have a problem 1 with adjusting, because most of their yellowtails are way past the

twelve-inch minimum size, since it’s tail length and not fork

length.

MIGUEL ROLON: Carlos, we are back on the screen. Natalia lost

her connection, but Liajay is switching over. Can you see the

screen?

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Yes, you’re on the screen.

MIGUEL ROLON: Okay. Just tell Liajay to go ahead for the next

slides. Sorry for that.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Okay. On the parrotfish, I know that we agreed

in federal waters that the redband would have a minimum size of

eight inches, and all other parrotfish would be nine inches, and

the fishermen also agree that they don’t have a problem with that

either, and so I think that that would be an easy fix, when it

comes to compatibility.

The prohibited species, the midnight, blue, and rainbow, we agreed,

at a council meeting, to prohibit the harvest of those species.

However, at that time, and I don’t even remember who the

commissioner was at the time, but we did not approve that for

territorial waters, and that’s also an easy fix. I think everybody

is in agreement that those three species should be protected.

I did speak about the spiny lobster and the tail weight and the

egg-bearing or undersized being used as attractants, and I’m not

sure how much of that would be accepted in federal waters, but we

will work on that. Then, for the recreational bag limit for spiny

lobster, we don’t have that yet, but we’re working on a

recreational license program which would address bag limits of

species. That might be it. It seems like that’s it.

Anyhow, I would like to know if the council wishes to move forward

with discussing compatibility on the regulations, and I know that

in the handbook, there are things like, on the territorial size,

the use of hookah gear is prohibited to harvest fishery resources.

However, on the federal side They don’t call it hookah gear,

and they call it continuous air supply from the surface, which is

a hookah gear, and so maybe those wordings can be addressed

somehow, but it’s only In the federal waters, it’s only for

queen conch that they’re prohibited to use a hookah, and I think

that all species should be prohibited from being caught with a

hookah, hookah gear.

I have a couple of things here that I marked off. We also

discussed, and I was looking everywhere in that table that Maria

and Sarah developed for me, when it came to coral, and, in the

handbook In the CFR, it protects coral. However, on the

territorial side, I did not see anything referencing coral, but,

in the VI Code, it’s referenced in the Coastal Zone Management

Act, where Title 12, Section 906 states that, to this end, sand,

rock, mineral, marine growth, and coral, including black coral,

natural material, or other natural products of the sea, excepting

fish and wildlife, shall not be taken from the shorelines without

first obtaining a coastal zone permit.

That really doesn’t clarify much, because that says “shoreline”,

and so that’s something that washed up, and I think, at one time,

it said dead or alive, but I don’t see that language in there

anymore.

Things like that are what we need to work on, and I would be happy

to send this out, but I think that the very important people that

need to be making these decisions is Director Angeli and the

council staff. I think they need to meet and discuss all these

issues, to see how we can start the discussion.

I also think that, eventually, when everything is said and done,

the district advisory panels need to meet and see what they think

about what has been proposed, and this is I know I’m talking

about the St. Croix land-based plan, but Puerto Rico or St. Thomas

can also jump on this at the same time, or wait until we finish

ours and see what happens, and I’m not sure, but that’s all I have,

Mr. Chair.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much, Carlos. We need to move along

a little quicker, and I need to hear from Go ahead, Miguel.

MIGUEL ROLON: Marcos, just let Puerto Rico and St. Thomas/St.

John think about this and come back to us at some other time, if

they want to, and I believe this is a lot of work, like Carlos

says, and our proposal is for us, Graciela and I, to meet with

Carlos and Dr. Angeli at the beginning of 2021 and see what is

needed to be done, because there’s a lot.

Remember that some of these things will require amendments to the

law in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and others would require maybe

I don’t know, and we would have to see, but maybe amendments to

the island-based FMPs, because remember that all of this is

predicted on the implementation of the island-based FMPs, and they

have been approved, and we’re just waiting for the implementation

that should occur in 2021.

Then, if Puerto Rico or St. Thomas would like to If St.

Thomas/St. John would like to start considering this, they can let

us know right now, or later, via an email, because, again, Dr.

Angeli will be representing both St. Thomas/St. John and St. Croix,

from the point of view of the government, and then we If somebody

from St. Thomas would like to do the same thing that Carlos is

doing, for example Tony, the council member, we can go ahead and

have that committee. When it comes to Puerto Rico, we need to

hear from Damaris if they would like to do such a thing, and then

we can have let’s say three stages.

The first one will be St. Croix, followed by St. Thomas/St. John,

and then Puerto Rico. They could be one after the other or parallel

to each other, because remember that all of this is a lot of work

underneath that we need to do, the staff, and, also, we need to

consult with the Regional Office on the different aspects of this.

For example, if we are going to talk about a permit, there are

some requirements about a permit, et cetera, et cetera, and so, in

essence, our proposal, Mr. Chairman, is to The top priority is

to continue the work with Dr. Angeli and Carlos in St. Croix, and

then, from here, let’s hear from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands

if they would like to follow suit on this one at this time or

later, or if they prefer to wait and see what happens with St.

Croix.

MARCOS HANKE: That was my question to Puerto Rico and to St.

Thomas/St. John, if they want to pursue this now or they want to

do it later.

JULIAN MAGRAS: I think You know, it’s something that we’ve

been discussing for a few years, and it’s good to start discussion.

The only problem, in St. Thomas/St. John, is we don’t have a

working fishery advisory committee, as St. Croix does. If we can

get a fishery advisory committee up and running, that’s one of the

items that I would like to see, is to start the discussion with

that committee, because you need that full involvement from that

committee, which represents the territorial sector.

Of course, then we can have the discussions with Maria Lopez and

Sarah Stephenson for the federal side and move forward from there,

and we are very interested, but, until we can get that committee

up and running, I think our hands are tied.

Through members of the Fishermen’s Association, we have had a lot

of discussions about it, and I’ve had discussions with Mr.

Blanchard, and we have some ideas and stuff that we would like to

very quickly move forward, similar to what Carlos Farchette said,

and so we are interested, and, if we can get the FAC up and running,

and maybe some members from the DAP and some members from the

Fishermen’s Association are open to sit down and have some

discussions, and so that’s where I stand with moving forward with

this project.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Julian. From Puerto Rico? Tony, go

ahead.

TONY BLANCHARD: I have to agree with Mr. Magras. I think the FAC

should be up and running, seeing that they are the local fishery

advisory committee, for their input and not just up to the Director

of Fish and Wildlife and maybe a handful of other people. I think

the job is to come up with ways of managing the territorial waters,

and I don’t really believe that, in my opinion, that the territory

should necessarily fall 100 percent compatible with the federal

regulations. I think somewhere in between there it has to be on,

a case-by-case decision that needs to be made.

The reason is just like anything else. If you look at the federal

laws in the states, and the state laws, they are separate for

certain reasons, and I think it should be kept the same way, and

I think decisions need to be made, which some should be compatible

and others should not. Once again, I think the FAC needs to be up

and running for their input, as well as the DAPs.

ROLON: Marcos.

MARCOS HANKE: Go ahead, Miguel. We are a little late on the

schedule.

MIGUEL ROLON: Yes, I know, but I wanted just to finish this part.

I believe that the council can go ahead and start working with St.

Croix first, and then, following Julian’s and Tony’s intervention,

we should wait until they have the FAC first meetings, and then we

can put together We can help put together a meeting, first

meeting, with St. Thomas/St. John to discuss this, and then, from

the point of view of the council, Tony as the Vice Chair, and

Julian as Chairman of the DAP, can join in with the staff of the

division and the staff of the council, but we should wait until

that time.

Then Puerto Rico, if Damaris would like to do the same thing, we

need to hear from her when and all that. In the case of Puerto

Rico, we are waiting for the new government to be in place, and

that will happen in January of 2021, and so, until that time,

probably we need to wait a little bit, but maybe Damaris has an

idea of how to proceed. Damaris, are you with us?

MARCOS HANKE: I think she is having problems with communication,

Miguel.

VANESSA RAMIREZ: Marcos, could I have a turn, please?

MARCOS HANKE: Go ahead, Vanessa.

VANESSA RAMIREZ: I was making the comment that, if Damaris doesn’t

talk, I just wanted to put on the record that already in Puerto

Rico the commercial fishermen have been asking for the lobster

For example, that it’s three in federal and 3.5 in state waters,

and so those are already

MIGUEL ROLON: Vanessa, before you continue, spiny lobster is the

only one that is the same across the jurisdictions, and so the

spiny lobster is 3.5 everywhere.

VANESSA RAMIREZ: I think that Damaris will be bringing something

to the next meeting.

MIGUEL ROLON: Exactly, and so that’s Following Vanessa’s

intervention, Marcos, and because of the time, probably we can go

ahead and move forward with the St. Croix proposal and wait until

the FAC meets in St. Thomas, and then we will talk to Damaris in

the first quarter of 2021, to see how it goes, and I believe that,

the same that we have done in the Virgin Islands, Vanessa could be

a member of that committee that is going to be formed, if ever, to

have compatible regulations.

Puerto Rico fishers have been asking for compatible regulations

for a long time, and we have talked and talked about it, but

nothing has happened. For example, if you go to Bajo de Sico and

Tourmaline, you have two areas where the local government and the

federal government have regulations, and you can put a boat there,

and the frontend of the boat will be in one regulation and the

back of the boat will be in another set of regulations. Let’s see

what happens next year, but this is something that should be a

priority in the council’s schedule for 2021.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Miguel. We are ready for the next

presentation. Graciela, can you put up on the screen the

presentation? The presentation is a project made by the students

of Humacao, in collaboration with many collaborators and

scientists and those students are students from the University of

Humacao, UPR Humacao.

I’m glad to present two of the presenters, and that will be Kiara

Torres and Paola Sotomayor, and Kiara is going to start the

presentation, and Paola is going to follow-up. We also want to

acknowledge that this presentation was prepared by Eva Collazo and

Gabriela Hernandez, two other students that collaborated very much

on this project, but they couldn’t be available to present or to

be on the meeting at this time. Let’s start with Kiara. Go ahead,

Kiara.

UNIVERSITY OF HUMACAO PRESENTATION

KIARA TORRES: (Ms. Torres’ presentation was in Spanish and was

not transcribed.)

PAOLA SOTOMAYOR: (Ms. Sotomayor’s presentation was in Spanish and

was not transcribed.)

MARCOS HANKE: We are ready for the next item on the agenda.

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: You have Jocelyn D’Ambrosio with the

Update on the Queen Conch Rebuilding Plan.

HANKE: Jocelyn.

ON THE QUEEN CONCH REBUILDING PLAN

JOCELYN D’AMBROSIO:

Thank you. I’m just going to give a brief

update, and I will actually start with the process that’s going on

with queen conch and the Endangered Species Act. We’ve talked

about this before, and, in 2014, the agency had made a

determination not to list queen conch under the Endangered Species

Act.

The agency then petitioned to list queen conch and made that

determination following the status review, and that decision was

challenged, and, last year, a District Court vacated NMFS’

decision, and so they remanded that to the agency to reconsider,

and so, in light of that ruling, NMFS has been reevaluating the

status of queen conch, and again is going to make a determination

about whether or not to list the species under the Endangered

Species Act.

Within the U.S. Caribbean, queen conch had been under a rebuilding

plan, and that was a fifteen-year rebuilding plan that the council

put in place, and that time period is ending this year, and so the

agency also will begin the process to evaluate whether queen conch

is rebuilt, and it was in a rebuilding plan because it had been

determined to be overfished, and so that would be another

evaluation of the stock status, but within the U.S. Caribbean, and

so the agency is going to be looking into that and making sure

that those processes are working together, to make sure that we’re

sharing information among the different prongs here and evaluating

the queen conch status.

We don’t really have an update on the status, and this is just

about the processes that are ongoing, and we expect to have further

updates as we have more information, as the status reviews unfold,

and I’m happy to answer any questions that anyone might have about

next steps or about these processes.

MARCOS HANKE: Go ahead, Carlos.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Thank you, Jocelyn. If the rebuilding plan is

about to expire, and you make a determination that it has not been

rebuilt, and so I guess we would go back and extend the rebuilding

period?

JOCELYN D’AMBROSIO: I think that’s right, and so we might need to

develop another amendment to just confirm that and make sure that

that’s all written up, but, yes, we would probably just extend it,

if it wasn’t rebuilt. The regulations, or the guidelines rather,

talk about maintaining the fishing rate at the current level, if

you determine it’s not rebuilt, and so we would have to evaluate

that process, if that was the determination.

ROY CRABTREE: What we’re recommending is that we let the status

review process work through and let the agency make a decision

about listing or not listing. Obviously, if the decision was to

list queen conch as endangered or threatened, that would change

the whole scenario, but, if the decision is that listing is not

warranted, then I think we could come in with queen conch and re-

look at it to determine whether we ought to switch the status to

unknown, which is what most of our stocks are, and then we would

just have management in place, or whether we would come in and set

up a new rebuilding plan.

I don’t know what the answer to that is, and I think, at some

point, we’ll want to have a discussion with the Science Center

about how we might look at it and reference points and things like

that, but it’s hard to really do anything or know how to proceed

until we work through the status review and until there’s a

decision made about listing.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Okay. Thanks, Roy. Thanks, Jocelyn.

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: Marcos, you have Richard asking for a

MARCOS HANKE: Go ahead, Richard. I have a little problem with my

audio, and I’m sorry, everyone. Go ahead, Richard.

RICHARD APPELDOORN: As everybody knows, the primary data input

for the consideration of the status of the conch are the SEAMAP

surveys, and these are now They have already been delayed for

several years, most recently due to COVID, but they are scheduled

to occur as soon as health conditions, I guess, allow resumption

of those field surveys, both in the Virgin Islands and in Puerto

Rico, and so we haven’t had a formal survey in something like seven

or eight years.

There has been, however, interim work done by Ron Hill and his

colleagues in St. Croix, and there was a student who did a master’s

thesis looking at technologies for doing surveys, but, in the

process, did a whole bunch of transects, and both of those showed

fairly high conch densities, and so there is some room for optimism

about the status, but we will actually be able to confirm where we

are once we can get those SEAMAP surveys underway, and so that’s

my comment.

MARCOS HANKE:

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: I mean, to continue with Richard’s

comments, there is also the data from the mesophotic reefs that

actually also show high densities of conch in the mesophotic areas

off the west coast of Puerto Rico, an area that has been closed

for a number of years, because, really, the only area that is open

in the EEZ is the Lang Bank, and so it definitely affects most

directly the St. Croix fishers. When we would have information

what data are being analyzed and the report that’s been written,

Jocelyn?

JOCELYN D’AMBROSIO: Right now, we have a status review team that

NMFS has compiled that is evaluating the status of queen conch

throughout its range, and I think they’re working on putting

together that status review report.

I think the expectation is to have that sometime next year, the

middle of next year, maybe around May, and so, as we get more

information on how that’s proceeding, we can share that, and then,

as Roy mentioned, letting that ESA process play out a little bit

more, so we understand how that’s going to unfold and then next

steps with the status within the U.S. Caribbean, but the short

answer is the status review team is evaluating the status, and

they are expecting to have a report.

Then, from there, the agency would move forward with making the

determination about listing. We reported earlier that they were

soliciting comments for the status review, and that period had

ended, but that process is still going forward.

ROY CRABTREE: I think the agency could probably update you at

future meetings about where all of this stands. Just bear in mind

that the status review and the listing decision will be for the

entire Caribbean Basin, and so this will include Florida and the

Bahamas and all of it, and so the U.S. Caribbean is really just a

very small area, when you look at it in terms of the entire

Caribbean.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Right, and, to that point, that would mean that,

if other countries are decimating the conch population, and they

determine that it is going to be listed, even if we’re doing the

right thing, we still pay the price, right?

ROY CRABTREE: If it’s listed, that will create some issues for

you. If it was listed as endangered, which It would prohibit

all take everywhere. If it was listed as threatened, it wouldn’t

necessarily prohibit all take, but I think even a threatened status

would be difficult to justify a directed harvest.

The ESA regulations, I mean, the U.S. would put in place would

affect the Florida fishery and the U.S. Caribbean, and it wouldn’t

necessarily affect the other countries, because, really, they’re

not under U.S. jurisdiction, but one thing that the U.S. might

look at, and could look at, would be a prohibition on the

importation of conch as well, and so there are lots of things that

could happen, and it’s just got to play through, but, clearly, if

the decision was reached to list queen conch, either as threatened

or endangered, it will have a big impact on fisheries in U.S.

waters.

GARCIA-MOLINER: One more question, Roy. There is a

hatchery that is being developed in Naguabo as we speak, and, I

mean, they are collecting queen conch to have it grown in situ and

then to replenish the nearshore habitats, and how would an ESA

listing impact a hatchery that is already creating jobs, et cetera?

ROY CRABTREE: Where did you say it was?

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: In Naguabo, and it’s on the east coast

of Puerto Rico.

ROY CRABTREE: They would have to look at it. It wouldn’t

necessarily preclude something like that, particularly a

threatened listing For example, many of the coral species, the

staghorn and elkhorn coral, there are quite a lot of those in

captivity, and we do culture operations and then replant corals

and reestablish them, and so this is kind of like that, and so

they would potentially have to get permits, under the ESA, but it

wouldn’t necessarily preclude it.

Generally, with a threatened listing, for some things at least,

and I think we did this for some of the corals, it excluded

scientific work and takes for research purposes, which might cover

a hatchery, and so it’s difficult to say, but it certainly wouldn’t

necessarily preclude it.

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: Thank you. Marcos, you have Vanessa

asking for a turn to speak.

MARCOS HANKE: Vanessa, go

VANESSA RAMIREZ: Thank you, Marcos. I just wanted to make a

comment, and I already texted Graciela about this, but I think

this is the time that we should start looking at the consideration

of the queen conch, and it’s been, from my experience (Part of

Ms. Ramirez’s comment is not audible on the recording.)

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: I don’t know if it’s me or everyone else

is having a hard time listening to Vanessa.

MARCOS HANKE: We are having a hard time to listen to her.

ALIDA ORTIZ: I can’t listen to her either.

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: Let me I think I can provide you with

some information. She was just saying that she had texted me the

fact that there have been incredible landings of queen conch. I

think that, after the 2017 hurricane, it took a while for queen

conch to, quote, unquote, come back, but they are reporting 500 to

600 pounds daily, and that’s only in Cabo Rojo, in Puerto Real,

one of the fishing villages on the west coast.

I believe that she was talking about the fact that it’s being found

in very shallow waters, in ten to thirty feet of water, and they

are actually seeing conch reproducing, and so egg masses have been

found in the shallower areas. Let me see. I am reading through

It would be a good time to put divers in the waters, in some kind

of cooperative research, to collect the data on what they are

actually seeing. I think that I covered pretty much what Vanessa

Okay. She agrees.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Graciela, and thank you, Vanessa.

Anybody else have any comments? Otherwise, we’re going to go to

the next item on the agenda, which will be the Public Comment.

Let’s go to the public comment, and I think we have Pauco that

requested time for public comment. Graciela, do you have the

letter that Pauco sent to put on the screen?

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: I think that it’s Liajay that is driving

now, and so here is the letter.

PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD

EDWIN FONT: (Mr. Font’s comments were in Spanish and were not

transcribed.)

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Pauco. Nelson Crespo.

NELSON CRESPO: (Mr. Crespo’s comments were in Spanish and were

not transcribed.)

VANESSA RAMIREZ: Marcos, just for the record, I am also suggesting

that, given the importance to Pauco’s letter and continuing with

this in the next meeting, checking the necessary things, or

checking out letters, and since 2019 he has sent those, and so I

think he deserves that we check on that. Thanks.

MARCOS HANKE: Gracias, Vanessa. Maria.

MARIA LOPEZ: I want to thank Pauco for his presentation and his

comments, and we’re very happy to assist you and Nelson, and so we

have the information that you provided, and we have letters, both

in Spanish and in English, and the information that you have

previously presented, and, at this time, if the council would like

to request staff to look into this action in some way, they can

definitely request that from the staff, and we will be happy to do

that. Thanks.

MARCOS HANKE: This is what I am hearing from the representatives

of Puerto Rico, where Bajo de Sico is, and I agree with them, and

I think we should visit and discuss this again. Other members of

the council, last words? Hearing none, Maria, you don’t need a

MARIA LOPEZ: If you have a direction, if the council has a

direction, that they would like to take regarding this, I believe

a motion would be a good way of doing that.

MARCOS HANKE: Can we use Pauco’ request and explore other

alternatives for the place, to create a comment?

MIGUEL ROLON: I am in the other meeting too, and one ear for one

and one for the other, but you need to decide really what you want

to do, and this meeting is not the place to do anything. What we

should do is to allow the staff, Graciela and Maria, to put this

in To order this, and then, for the next meeting in April, come

with some ideas of what can be done.

The thing that he is doing, Puerto Rico has to say something, and

Puerto Rico has to work on it, and I have a message from Puerto

Rico that Damaris has a problem with connections, but she knows

what we want to do, which is ask her for compatible regulation

negotiations or meetings, and they will start that next year, but

Wilson is going to talk to her, and probably, tomorrow morning,

she will say something to that point.

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: Marcos, you have Roy Crabtree also

waiting to speak.

MARCOS

Yes. Roy, go ahead.

ROY CRABTREE: Well, it seems to me that, every time we go into

Bajo de Sico, it really is opening a can of worms, and it has been

very controversial, on occasions. The most people I have ever

seen turn out for public comment at a Caribbean Council meeting

was in western Puerto Rico, due to some of these issues, and so I

won’t be around, and so it’s up to you guys, but, for what it’s

worth, this is not something that I would encourage you to open up

or to go into again, but it’s your call.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Roy. Actually, I want to make a question

to you. Are you going to be with us tomorrow, on the tomorrow

meeting?

ROY CRABTREE: I cannot. I have a South Atlantic Council meeting

that’s going on at the same time, and so I’m just here with you

today, and that’s it, and then I am retiring at the end of the

month, and then I expect that the Deputy, Andy Strelcheck, will

become the Acting Regional Administrator for a while, and then

he’ll have to make new designations and things for the next

meeting.

MARCOS HANKE: The reason for my question is to say, again, of my

gratitude, and I’m so honored to work with you, and I know that

the council expressed to you our gratitude for all the effort and

the patience and the knowledge and the support that you gave to

the Caribbean region. Thank you very much, Roy. In my opinion,

and I know that the council agrees with that, you made a big

difference in our region, and thank you very much.

ROY CRABTREE: Thank you, Marcos. I appreciate those kind words.

MARCOS HANKE: In terms of the

MIGUEL ROLON: Would anybody like to say something to Roy, any

other council member? I, for one, would like to say, again, that

Roy probably has been one of the best, if not the best, Regional

Administrators that we’ve had in a long time, and I wish him the

best in his new endeavor, and just to let him know that he has

some friends here, and so, if you’re ever in Puerto Rico after

COVID and want some coffee, let us know. We have some places that

we can take you. Thank you, Roy, for all these years.

ROY CRABTREE: Thank you, Miguel. Thanks to all of you. You’ve

been a great group, and I’ve really enjoyed my times in the

Caribbean, and hopefully, when we get through COVID and all this,

I’ll be back down there sometime.

MARCOS HANKE: We have Nicole Angeli also sending a message to

you, Roy, on the chat. It says thank you for your support and

help, Roy. I am sorry to interrupt the discussion before, but

this is important, to recognize all the help and the support that

Roy gave to our region. Maria, like Miguel says, we’re going to

let the staff work with this letter, and with the possibility for

maybe a presentation at the next meeting, to follow-up on the Bajo

de Sico thing, and then we will decide what to do.

MARIA LOPEZ: Noted. Sounds good.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much. Any other

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: Mr. Chair, I would encourage everyone to

go to our website and look under Library, to the technical reports

on what has been found at Bajo de Sico, and so it’s not only the

shallower part of Bajo de Sico, but it’s also the mesophotic reefs,

and it’s also the deeper water around Bajo de Sico, and so I will

encourage everyone to go look at that and look at the AUV work and

the ROV work that’s been done in the area, so that you see what

other resources you are protecting, and you have been protecting,

in and around Bajo de Sico. Thank you.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Graciela. We all need to read, again,

and make sure that we have the best information to follow-up on

this issue, because Bajo de Sico is very important to everybody.

It’s conflictive, but it’s important, but we need to discuss it a

little more. Is there anybody else from the public? Wilson.

WILSON SANTIAGO: For the record, I just want to say that Damaris,

like Miguel said, had a problem, connection problem, and I

addressed the matter that you asked for feedback from her, and

maybe tomorrow she will have her answer for Miguel, for the

council.

MARCOS HANKE: Okay. Thank you very much. Hearing that we don’t

have anybody else from the public, I am ready to adjourn the

meeting. Thank you to everybody, and I think it was a little

longer than expected, and thank you for your patience, but we had

the opportunity to hear from the fishermen, and I’m sorry about

the problems in the translation. If there is any missing

information, any help needed, we are able to help. Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.

(Whereupon, the meeting recessed on December 8, 2020.)

The Caribbean Fishery Management Council reconvened via webinar on

Wednesday morning, December 9, 2020, and was called to order at

9:00 o’clock a.m. by Chairman Marcos Hanke.

MARCOS HANKE: Good morning, everyone. It’s 9:05 a.m. We are

ready to start the meeting, and today is December 9, at 9:05 a.m.

This is the 172nd Virtual Council Meeting, and we’re going to start

with the roll call. Natalia, can you help me?

NATALIA PERDOMO: I am going to start the roll call with Miguel

Rolon, Graciela Garcia-Moliner, Liajay Rivera, Marcos Hanke,

Virginia Shervette, Adyan Rios, Alida Ortiz, Angie de los Irizarry,

Christina Olan, Damaris Delgado, David Ortiz, Guillermo Cordero,

Julian Magras, Jack McGovern, Jannette Ramos, Jocelyn D’Ambrosio,

John Walter, Katie Siegfried, Loren Remsberg, Manny Antonaras,

Maria Lopez, Michelle Scharer, Nelson Crespo, Nicole Greaux,

Nikita Charles, Carlos Farchette, Richard Appeldoorn, Sarah

Stephenson, Shannon Calay, Vanessa Ramirez, and Wilson Santiago.

If I missed anybody, please identify yourself. I have an iPad

here.

EDWARD

NATALIA

MIGUEL

TONY

Thank you, Edward.

MARCOS HANKE: Anybody else missing? Hearing none, we are going

to start with the first presentation. Today, we have a list of

very important presentations, very interesting, and let’s try to

make the best of our time. The first presentation is Deepwater

Snapper and Reef Fishes in the U.S. Caribbean: Aging Validation

Using Bomb Radiocarbon and Preliminary Longevity Estimates by

Virginia Shervette. Welcome, Virginia. Thank you very much, and

go ahead.

VIRGINIA SHERVETTE: Thank you for letting me talk about some of

the work that we’ve been doing since about 2013 on reef fish and

the deepwater snapper species. Estimating ages and documenting

longevity for fisheries species is a fundamental step in our

ability to sustainably manage fisheries.

Information that we focus on doing, research-wise, is we do life

history work, age, growth, and reproductive biology for Caribbean

species. These data are then used by fisheries scientists for

some of the modeling work that they do as part of the assessment

process, and, in order to do those models, you’ve got to have at

least a Well, you’ve got to have age data, and age data should

be accurate. Otherwise, the models won’t perform, and they won’t

give you factual information, and that will make management

difficult.

The tropical fisheries species that we work are a little bit

different from what a lot of other fishery biologists work with in

the Southeast and the Gulf of Mexico. I have often actually heard

multiple people from those areas that doing this kind of work isn’t

rocket science, and I think one of the reasons why they say that,

and they think it’s so easy, is because the species that they work

with in those more temperate areas have really clear, opaque zones

on the otoliths that are easy to see and easy to count. That is

not so for tropical fishes though, the ones that we work with at

least.

Those residing along the shallower shelf habitats and the deepwater

slope species actually do not have otoliths with opaque zones that

present super clear, and so it might not be rocket science, working

with fish ageing, but it does take skill and experience, and it’s

naïve of a responsible scientist that oversees research projects

that include fish ageing as one of their study goals to assume

that it’s going to be easy to age their fish samples without the

collaboration of experienced scientists.

Many of the species that I’m going to talk about today have

actually been inaccurately, or incorrectly, aged in past research.

It takes a lot of meticulous effort and a large amount of work to

ensure that age data for these species are accurate and provide

useful information for the populations.

For those studies that have been published previously, obtaining

and publishing inaccurate, or incorrect, age and growth data for

fisheries species can have detrimental consequences, and so here

is just some examples of the deepwater species that we’re currently

working with and just some of their otoliths, and these are all at

the same scale.

Just to give you an idea, wenchman have pretty big otoliths

compared to queen snapper and vermilion snapper, for example, and

all of them are really cool, but it just takes a lot of work trying

to figure out what we should be counting and the methodology for

ageing fishes.

That is why we have focused on validating age estimation for as

many of the fish species as we can, to ensure that we have an

ageing method that is actually providing the true age of our

samples, of our fish samples, and so we’re doing this through

application of the bomb radiocarbon chronometer, and so that’s

r14C, and it was introduced into the atmosphere through nuclear

bomb testing, starting in the 1950s, up through until the 1970s,

and so, basically, it’s this atmospheric r14C that wasn’t there

before, and we’ve got some really high concentrations, relative to

not being there before.

It dissolves into ocean carbon dioxide, and then it gets

incorporated into the aragonite skeletons, which is that calcium

carbonate, biogenic calcium carbonate, material that we see as 1 part of the skeletons of hermatypic corals, which are shallow-

water corals, stony corals, and carbonate-based shells of things

like mollusks, and then also aragonite, or calcium-carbonate-based

structures, of fishes.

The time-specific bomb radiocarbon aragonite record provides

basically regional reference chronologies that we can then use to

evaluate fish age estimates through comparing measurements from

the core, the otolith core, of the fish or the eye lens core of a

fish, which basically recorded the level of r14C that first year

of life for that fish.

We can take that and plot it against a regional record for our

reference, and that will give us an idea if we line up with the

actual trend of the r14C, and so what I have here is I have plotted

the coral record of r 14C from southwest Puerto Rico and from south

Florida, and this is just to show you there is regional differences

in this record, and it’s a little bit different from when your

objectives are looking at r14C in coral versus using it to age

fish.

What we actually had to do was to establish our own regional record

to use for the validation purposes, and we were able to do that

with using known age otoliths from red hind that were collected in

the early 1980s all the way through 2020, and so we analyzed those

red hind otoliths, and we knew their ages. That made it so that

we could plot what the r 14C level was on our graph here, versus

the year that that otolith material was formed, or the birth year,

and so all these Xs are the ones that They’re the data that

we’ve added to this record, and this is the tool that we now can

use to validate age estimation methods for Caribbean species.

I’m going to give you some examples of some species that we’ve

done this with, and so this is blackfin snapper. This is an

otolith section from a fish that was actually caught by the

Department of Wildlife and Fisheries with VI DPNR, as part of their

deepwater snapper collections, fishery-independent collections.

This actually ended up being the oldest blackfin snapper, that has

ever been analyzed at least. The previous maximum age estimate

for blackfish snapper came from a Florida fish, and that was

twenty-seven, and so we have increased the longevity, the known

longevity, of this species to forty-five.

This is basically the tool that we’re using in order to validate

our ages, and, like I said, what we do is we take material from

the otolith core that formed during that first year of life from

the fish, and we analyze that for the r14C level, and then we count

all the increments on the otolith section.

That gives us an estimated age, and we take the date of collection

and subtract that estimated age, and so something like that this

guy was caught in 2020, and it was thirty-five years old, and it

ended up having an estimated birth year of 1985, and so we plotted

its r14C level right here.

Then its estimated birth year of 1985, and it was right in the

middle, and so we actually used statistical methods to analyze if

our age estimate birth years are lining up with the reference

series from the red hind, and so, for all the species that I am

showing you today, with the analyses that we’ve done, we are

statistically demonstrating that our age estimates are accurate.

Real quickly, for blackfin snapper, work was done for fish from

Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina, and they had

a few Caribbean species, and this was published a few years ago,

and the growth curve that they got was very different from our

growth curve that we’ve gotten from our preliminary samples right

here, and I have plotted the validated ages for our blackfin

snapper versus the size, and then I’ve plotted the growth curve,

and so that’s it with our observed data.

This is just to show you that, if we hadn’t done this research and

validated our ages, and knew that our ages were accurate, then,

when a stock assessment is done, they tend to use data If we

don’t have it from local populations, then data from other

populations, like from Florida, will be used for the growth

parameters.

If that was done, using the data from the study that was done a

couple of years ago by Burton et al., then that data would not be

actually representing what we see in the U.S. Caribbean. Again,

it’s important to do this work.

This is just some other results for some other species that we’re

working with, and I will just real quickly go through it, and Kate

is going to talk to you more about queen snapper and tell you a

little bit about some of the age work, but the maximum age for

queen snapper that we have validated so far is over forty-five

years old.

We have actually only analyzed about ten Well, we have estimated

the age for about twenty cardinal snapper, and then, of those, we

selected five to validate ages for, and the maximum age that we’ve

gotten so far is seventeen years, which they actually probably get

a lot older, but we just don’t have a lot of samples to pull from

yet.

Another example of that is the black snapper, and we’ve got ten

blackfin snapper samples so far, and, of those ten, one of them

had an age of twenty years, and, again, that’s a validated age.

With some of the species that we’re looking at, their otoliths are

teeny, teeny, tiny. This is a coney otolith on a quarter, just to

show you how small they are, and these are the otolith sections

for coney and graysby, and so we use the eye lens core instead,

because, with really small otoliths, you can’t get enough material

from the core to do the analysis for the radiocarbon level, and so

we actually use the eye lens, and this is showing you the eye lens,

and you can see these circles, and the eye lens core is what forms

in that first year of life, and so we extract that eye lens core

and we analyze that. For these species, and then for all the other

species that I am going to talk about after this, we used the eye

lens core.

The maximum age for coney so far, for the Caribbean, is about

thirty, and the maximum age for graysby is also up in the thirties,

and those are validated ages. Another species that we’ve been

working extensively with, and Jesus is going to tell you more

about, is queen triggerfish.

Previous work on queen triggerfish used the dorsal spine to

estimate ages, because the otoliths are teeny, teeny, tiny.

There’s an example right there. They’re a weird shape, and they’re

really hard to get out without breaking, and so people are using

the dorsal spine as an alternative ageing structure. The maximum

age that was documented for queen triggerfish in the U.S. Caribbean

was done by Manooch in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and he

calculated the maximum age as seven, using the dorsal spine.

We did the same thing and used dorsal spines and otoliths to

estimate age, and we plotted both results here on our radiocarbon

chronometer, and, as you can see, the dorsal spines do not appear

to provide accurate age estimates. The otoliths do, and the

maximum age that we’ve found so far is twenty-one years for this

species, and so that basically has tripled the longevity, our

understanding of longevity, in queen triggerfish.

We’re also investigating parrotfish species, seven or eight of the

parrotfish species that occur in the U.S. Caribbean, and these

guys also have teeny, tiny otoliths. These are the sparisoma

species, and it was previously thought, by Choat and Robertson,

that parrotfish in the U.S. Caribbean do not live nearly as long

as parrotfish do in the Pacific, and so the previously-estimated

maximum ages we have actually doubled or tripled, depending on

which one, but stoplight, you can see, has a maximum age that we

found of sixteen years, for example. Redband, redtail, and

yellowtail all have maximum ages that are much higher than was

previously documented, or thought.

For the Scarus parrotfish species, so far, we’ve found a maximum

age of twenty years, and that’s for queen parrotfish. Striped

parrotfish, we only have a few samples, and so they probably get

much older than seven years, but we just need to continue to sample

them and read otoliths and analyze a few more, to get a better

handle on their maximum age.

Then we recently wrapped up a project with hogfish, in

collaboration with commercial fishers in the U.S. Caribbean, and

I just submitted the report for this, and this is just some of the

results from it, just to kind of show you how we’ve applied this

for a species.

The maximum age that we’ve found for hogfish is twenty years in

the U.S. Caribbean, and that was similar to what’s been reported

for Florida, and our biggest recommendation with the hogfish is

that we really need some fishery-independent samples to further

understand what’s going on across the populations, just because

we’ve got very different fishing methods among the islands for

hogfish, for triggerfish, for most species, and so fishery-

dependent samples are great for getting some basic understanding

of what’s going on, but further research needs to be done for all

the species with fishery-independent samples as well.

That’s all the species I’m going to tell you about right now.

We’re doing this for a ton more species though. We’ve got data

for a ton more species, and these are just some of them, including

all the boxfish species, which are pretty awesome, and unexpectedly

get pretty old, and that is really all that I have for you today.

Thank you to all the fishers that have helped us. We couldn’t do

this without you, and thanks to the natural resource managers

across the U.S. Caribbean. You’ve helped us tremendously as well,

and thank you for listening to the talk.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Virginia. That was a great presentation.

I hope we will have much time to talk it over and for questions,

but let’s open for two questions to follow-up with the other

presentations. Are there questions? Richard.

RICHARD APPELDOORN: Good morning. That was really stunning,

Virginia, and thank you very much for sharing all of that. Can

you put on one of your early slides that had the growth curve for

the deepwater snapper?

My question is not your ageing, and I think that’s really solid

and incredibly significant. However, I am looking at the growth

curve and seeing how quickly it flattens, basically being driven

by that one last point, where you have that other one that’s way

above it, the second-to-last point, and so I’m just questioning

the variability on the growth curve that comes out of that, given

that those two points are so variable, and I guess emphasizing the

need to try to get a lot more of those bigger fish, so you can

really pin down what that L infinity value is.

VIRGINIA SHERVETTE: Right, and so this actually was research that

we were just doing opportunistically. We’re trying to get funding

to actually do a full-blown study for age and growth of blackfin

and some of the other species of deepwater snapper, but this is

just stuff that we pulled together ourselves, and we cobbled

together money to purchase fish to look at this initially, so we

would have data, but you’re right that we don’t have a lot of large

samples. We need those larger samples in order to get a better

understanding of what’s going on in that region.

RICHARD APPELDOORN: But, to some extent, documenting the age is

perhaps even more important than documenting what the L infinity

value is at that age, and so, again, I congratulate you on these

results, and they’re really going to make a difference in how we

think about our fisheries, and I certainly hope that you can use

this to get the funding that you need to do more.

VIRGINIA SHERVETTE:

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Richard. We have John Walter next.

JOHN WALTER: Thank you, Chair. Dr. Shervette, this is really

groundbreaking work, and the Center is really excited to see this

work for a lot of these species, because they’ve been super

challenging for a long time, and, specifically, we’ve got a queen

triggerfish assessment coming up, and I think everyone involved

with the fishery would really like to see the best data used. Do

you think it will be available early in 2021, for the upcoming

assessment?

VIRGINIA SHERVETTE: I think, and I don’t know how politically

savvy it is to say this, but all of our triggerfish samples are

fishery-dependent, and there are major differences among the

islands in the years that are used, and so, from our data, it looks

like there is way different things going on with the populations,

but it’s probably just an artifact of gear selectivity, and so

we’ve actually submitted a proposal to I think it was S-K.

Last year, we submitted a proposal to CRP, so we could get more

data for fishery-independent work on queen triggerfish, because

that’s what we need now. We need samples from across all three

islands that are fishery-independently collected in a well-

designed way, in order to be able to really understand what’s going

on with the background population.

In saying all of that, yes, we can have data ready from our fishery-

dependent samples, but the assessment will not be complete, maybe,

without having fishery-independent samples, for age estimates at

least.

JOHN WALTER: Well, in actuality, we use fishery-dependent data

all the time in our assessment models, and the models can handle

that difference in selectivity between fishery-dependent, and even

fishery-independent data still comes from gear that has

selectivity, if not availability, and so the data scoping webinar

is January 11, and I really would invite your students and lab

members and you to get involved in it, because I think it’s going

to really open the door for this assessment, to getting the most

recent and relevant information in.

VIRGINIA SHERVETTE:

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Virginia. Thank you, John Walter. I

have Julian and Vanessa. Please be very brief for us, and I want

to hear what Because Julian was involved in this project, and

briefly your comments to move on, because we are a little late on

the schedule. Go ahead, Julian.

JULIAN MAGRAS: Good morning. Excellent, excellent presentation,

Virginia. I know we did a lot of work in trying to get this kicked

off, and I know there’s a lot more work to be done, and, with that

said, I have the powers-that-be at the table, or on the conference

here today, and, because we had some delays in getting funding,

and this goes out to Miguel and Marcos, but, if we put together a

proposal, we are wondering if the council would support us with

some funding to continue doing some assessments and collecting

samples to keep this project moving forward, both for the deepwater

snappers and for the queen triggerfish.

I’m throwing that out there, and I know that there seems to be

some extra monies floating around, because of not having the

meetings the way we normally have them, and I would like to have

some discussion, or you guys can have some discussion, and being

willing to help us fund this project, so we can continue. Thank

you.

VIRGINIA SHERVETTE: Thank you, Julian.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Julian. Vanessa, very quick, please.

VANESSA RAMIREZ: Thank you, Virginia, for this presentation, and

I just wanted to comment that I hear that you need more samples

for the triggerfish and hogfish. On the west side, we get a lot

of hogfish weekly, and so I just wanted to tell you that, if you

need more samples, just contact me, and I’m going to make that

work for you. Thanks.

VIRGINIA SHERVETTE: Absolutely. Wilson is the one that helps us

tremendously in coordinating getting samples, and so I’m sure that

all of us will be in contact soon.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much, Virginia. The next

presentation is Kate Overly and research on queen snapper. Go

ahead.

RESEARCH ON QUEEN SNAPPER IN PUERTO RICO

KATE OVERLY: Good morning, everyone. Thank you to the Caribbean

Fishery Management Council for inviting me to talk about my

research this morning. My name is Kate Overly, and I’m from the

NOAA Panama City Lab in Florida.

Today, I’m going to talk about three projects, fairly quickly,

that I am leading in the Caribbean, specifically Puerto Rico, with

a focus towards queen snapper, with the overarching idea of the

development and implementation of a deepwater fishery-independent

survey that targets the deepwater snapper grouper complex.

The first project listed here is a habitat classification in Puerto

Rico’s deep-drop fishery. Just below the title there are a few

images taken from our deepwater videos. Those ones, in particular,

range from depths from 250 to about 370 meters on the west coast.

This project actually originated as a pilot study which utilized

a fishery-independent hook-and-line survey designed by Steve Smith

and Jerry Ault out of the University of Miami Rasmus, and so we

constructed a video camera system that was deployed on the

commercial fishermen’s deep-drop fishing gear while they were

fishing, in order to evaluate the use of low-cost cameras to better

inform the CFMC on fish-habitat relationships going forward in the

future.

The system worked great, with the exception of the depth component,

and so we observed essentially that, at depths greater than 250

meters, they really require some sort of auxiliary lighting, and

so ambient light was just not enough beyond 250.

Given the focus of our project, and they range down to 500 meters

and greater, we have discovered, and we ended up developing a two-

year project, beginning in the fall of 2018, that utilized Jerry

and Steve’s fishery-independent hook-and-line sampling frame and

added the component of a deepwater camera and LED light system, in

order to observe the benthic habitats and the fish communities.

To the right there, you’ll see a diagram of the system we

developed. Just in a nutshell, you have the example of the

fisherman’s vertical longline, with hooks and a weight attached,

and then what differs, obviously, is the camera system, and so the

camera system is attached to the fishermen’s main line by two

gangions, and then the system itself

The base of it is just constructed out of PVC board, and that kind

of cream-colored rectangle on top there is just subsea foam, and

so that will keep the system pretty neutrally buoyant in the water,

and so it won’t float too far up off the seafloor, and it won’t

hopefully crash into the seafloor, and it keeps it at about a

forty-five-degree angle, give or take, and so, that way, we’re

getting a view of the habitat and the seafloor, but we’re also

seeing the fish, and not just from a top-down angle, because that

can be tricky to ID.

This system is deployable from center-console vessels, tethered,

obviously, to the commercial deep-drop fishing gear, and we used

it in the west, northwest, northeast, and southeast regions of

Puerto Rico, from a range of depths from 100 to 500 meters, just

to cover that, at the time, known depth range of queen snapper and

other species in the deepwater snapper grouper complex.

The overall objectives for our specific research questions was to

describe habitat utilization of queen snapper, using both the video

and hook-and-line fishing data, in addition to generating length

and weight and collecting biological samples for age, growth, and

reproductive studies on queen snapper and other target species, as

a collaboration with Dr. Virginia Shervette out of the University

of South Carolina Aiken.

Our survey resulted in 471 videos documenting habitat and deepwater

invertebrates over the course of two years. In the bottom-right

there, you will see some spatial coverage of our video and hook-

and-line stations on that map, and the red dots are our year-one

samples and our stations, and the yellow are our year-two, and so

that gives you kind of an idea of where we were sampling.

These are the first stationary videos that we know of utilizing

local commercial fishermen in Puerto Rico to document habitat,

fish diversity, and benthic invertebrates of these poorly-studies

deepwater reefs.

We are currently finalizing our video analysis, and so all videos

are read for habitat classification, fish and invertebrate

identification, to their lowest taxon possible, and we generate

minimum counts, which is just the maximum number of fish observed

in a single frame for each species, which, obviously, also results

in the presence or absence for each species, and then, finally, we

generate the percentage of bottom covered by specific biotic and

abiotic features, such as corals or rock, using a computer software

program.

This video data will be used to estimate factors affecting queen

snapper distributions and abundance, in addition to generating

data on species richness and a diversity index for these sampled

sites, and so the video data will also allow us to document

patterns in observed fish communities, both on the hook-and-line

and video, and just some examples of some of the video clips, and

those are just still images up at the top there, but you see some

wenchman snapper, and you see some silk snapper, there is sargassum

and triggerfish in that top-left, and so we see quite a range of

fish from the deepwater communities.

I mentioned that, in addition to our video data, that we also

generate catch data from our survey, and so we generate fish ID in

measurements, and that is recorded for everything that comes

onboard, and then we take the addition of sex and fin clips for

deepwater shark species, and then weight and sex are also recorded

for our target snapper species.

For our target snapper species, we have queen snapper, blackfin

snapper, and black snapper. We collect biological samples,

specifically otoliths and gonads, for all three of those whenever

we catch them, and the biological samples collected, like I said,

are being utilized in age and growth studies, as a part of our

collaborative work with Dr. Shervette and her team, which is

essentially to help us fill the large data gaps for the species in

the deepwater snapper grouper complex.

One of the most important aspects to our catch data is that all of

it is co-registered with the multibeam bathymetry data, and so our

mapping data, our video data, and therefore habitat, and, of 1 course, we have depth and coordinates for all of our stations as 2 well.

Some preliminary results, and this project was also funded by the

Southeast Deep Coral Initiative, in addition to the cooperative

research program, and so we did have a focus on looking at habitat

and deepwater corals around Puerto Rico, and so, as this specific

project is wrapping up and we’re closing in on our analyses, our

preliminary results identified seventy-seven fish species on video

and twenty-two different species caught on hook-and-line.

In addition to that, we have identified over 100 invertebrate taxa,

both sessile and mobile, throughout all three regions, and so

several locations on the west coast exhibited a high diversity of

invertebrates and we feel represent areas that may potentially be

included in management decisions in the future.

Our preliminary analysis for year-one of field work shows that the

western region of Puerto Rico contained the most diverse sponge

communities in the largest numbers, with fifteen different orders

identified, which was followed closely by the southeast, with an

N of ten, and, lastly, the northeast, with an N of five. Off to

the right there, you will see those are images from four west coast

sites, and those are just kind of a range of the corals we see at

a variety of depths.

Then, if you look at the bottom-left-hand side, you will see a pie

chart, and those are taxa documented in year-one, and it yielded

a total of 1,200 individual coral and sponges, which made up a

total of six classes, and so we have a lot of diversity that we’re

seeing.

We are currently wrapping up the processing of our year-two videos,

and we’re expecting preliminary results by the end of this month,

and so these data will be further explored, to assist with

describing habitat utilization and linkages between queen snapper

and deepwater coral communities around Puerto Rico, in addition to

exploring habitat associations with other species as well. As I

said, our focus is, obviously, on queen snapper for this project,

but we do generate data on species such as silk snapper, blackfin

snapper, any of the pristipomoides genus, and so on and so forth.

Into our second project that involves queen snapper, and so, as we

wrap-up our analyses for the original two-year video project, we

basically took what we learned to develop a more comprehensive

U.S. Caribbean fishery-independent survey utilizing stereo video

and hook-and-line methods, to assess the deepwater snapper grouper

complex in Puerto Rico, specifically the west coast.

Like I said, this project focuses on that development and

implementation of a deepwater fishery-independent stereo video

survey on the west coast, and we are utilizing multibeam mapping

data for our survey design, and, obviously, we have this emphasis

on targeting the deepwater snapper grouper fisheries, and, in this

survey, we did extend the maximum depth range, and we have

developed new gear that does go beyond 500 meters, and so we have

extended it to 650, to try and get what we think might be the top

end of some of these fishes’ range, such as queen snapper, to try

and incorporate that full depth.

The field component, which is currently slated to begin in January

of 2021, will consist of the deployment and the retrieval of a

stationary, baited, stereo remote underwater video system, and so,

for short, that’s an S-BRUV, and that is attached to deep-drop

fishing gear, and it can also be utilized off of commercial fishing

vessels, and we’ll record imagery of benthic habitats and fish

assemblages where it is deployed.

The S-BRUV will have the capability of generating optical imagery

using paired deepwater stereo video cameras, which essentially

allows for non-invasive methods to gather size composition and

abundance data from both exploited and non-target species that are

either not typically caught using the traditional hook-and-line

methods, are wary of the fishing line, or are restricted, due to

various fishing regulations.

In addition to the stereo video, the system will also have

wavelength-modified LED lights, and so, instead of just having

your white LEDs, we are actually utilizing red, orange, and amber,

and that is to reduce the bias in video sampling for fish that are

wary of light at deeper depths, and so, for instance, queen

snapper, cardinal snapper, and wenchman snapper do tend to kind of

hang out on the outskirts of the lights on all of our videos and

our gear, one so we can still see them, but they don’t come into

the field of view, and so we’re trying to reduce that bias for

this survey.

In addition to visual imagery, we are also deploying two fishing

lines at each station, in order to collect biological samples

following the retrieval of the S-BRUV system, and so these samples,

again, will be going towards collaborative age and growth and

reproductive studies with Dr. Shervette and her team at the

university.

Then, by deploying two separate fishing lines, we’re hoping to be

able to test bait preference of species as well, and so, for 1 instance, baiting with tuna on one line and baiting with squid on 2 the other line, to see if there’s any sort of difference in 3 preference of snapper species, grouper species, and so on.

Then, to the right there, you’ll just see an example of what our 6 S-BRUV looks like, and it’s kind of just a diagram. The little

red rectangles are the stereo cameras, and this is a side view,

just so you get the full idea of the system, but, from the back,

those are actually paired and set a distance apart, so we can

actually achieve stereo, and so you can’t see it in this photo,

but there are two there for the paired system.

As for our expected outcomes, this project works to develop the

necessary steps required to collect appropriate data to assess

species in the deepwater snapper grouper complex, hopefully

throughout the U.S. Caribbean, and so this will be achieved through

the development and the build of this deepwater S-BRUV system,

combined with the wavelength-modified LED lights, which, as I said,

will provide a non-destructive for measuring that fish length for

species which avoid and are difficult to catch by hook-and-line

methods.

Then the survey itself will provide an unbiased georeferenced

estimate of relative abundance for fish species and sizes of

exploited and unexploited fishes for the west coast of Puerto Rico.

Then, overall, this project provides technology that will be

directly transferable to other SEFSC regions, where it can be

reproduced at a low cost to gather data on distribution, abundance,

length composition, and so on for species of interest, and this

can also be given to other organizations, and other organizations

can definitely use this technology as well.

Then, lastly, on to our third and last project that I will be

discussing with you all, and it’s age and growth of queen snapper.

Virginia went over a little bit of this, thankfully, and so you

have kind of the background of the bomb radiocarbon chronometer,

and just the age and growth for this species in general, but

pictured here is a queen snapper otolith for a fish with a fork

length of 708 millimeters, and you can kind of see, just by looking

at it, that the opaque zones are very difficult to discern. You

can kind of get an idea of how difficult this species can be to

age.

Essentially, the objectives for this project were to age archived

and contemporary otoliths from the U.S. Caribbean and the U.S.

Gulf of Mexico, and so we’re able to do a comparison between the

two regions, to see if there’s any growth differences, and so we

have a lot of otoliths at our lab in Panama City. We have a lot

of archived queen snapper otoliths, and so we basically took a

sub-sample of across three decades, ranging from 1991 to 2019.

We took a sub-sample of 300, and then, in the U.S. Caribbean, we

have over 800 otoliths that come from varying sources from the

Puerto Rico DNER and commercial fishermen and Dr. Shervette and

her team, and then, obviously, our project, Steve Smith and Jerry

Ault’s projects, and we have a lot of sources giving otoliths and

contributing to this project. Those range in date from about 2005

to 2020, with a few gaps in between there in the early years.

Given the difficulties in sectioning and ageing queen snapper, we

are validating the accuracy of our age estimation via application

of bomb radiocarbon chronometer, using both otolith and eye lens

cores, which Virginia went over a little bit in her presentation,

and so the bomb radiocarbon chronometer We’re essentially using

it because the ageing error in tropical, as well as deepwater,

species can be exasperated, due to the environmental consistency

that provides very little seasonal variability to drive that

distinct opaque zone formation that makes it easy to count opaque

zones.

Queen snapper are absolutely no exception to this, and they’re

very difficult to age, as a result. It took us a while to nail

down a sectioning protocol, for the thickness of the otoliths and

so on, and so, because of this, we determined that age validation

would need to be employed to accurately age this species, and

therefore prevent ageing error and validate accuracy of our age

estimation.

The pictures on the right-hand side here, real quick, we have our

IsoMet saw, and that is what we use to section the embedded

otoliths, and we take three sections of each queen snapper otolith.

The top image there just shows how small and fragile these otoliths

are in comparison to a penny, and so those are queen snapper

otoliths.

Then the bottom two images there are eyes from queen snapper, and

so the one on the left, that larger eye, came from a fish with a

fork length of 708 millimeters, and so much larger, and the one on

the right came from a fish with a fork length of 178 millimeters,

and so our smallest sample, actually, and that’s a very small fish,

and you can see the difference in eye size there.

Then the image at the bottom there is just an eye lens extracted

out of the eyeball, and it’s just in a gloved hand, and so we

actually peel the layers back and get to the eye lens core, and

that is what we use in our validation.

Our expected outcomes, and so we are wrapping this up as well right

now, and we’re hoping to get out a few publications to disseminate

our results, but, essentially, this project, age, growth, and

mortality parameters are the essential first steps to being able

to compute that quantitative assessment on queen snapper in the

U.S. Caribbean.

This project is providing critical information on queen snapper

life history, including validated age composition estimates for

those U.S. Caribbean queen snapper, and we actually have a total

of about twenty-one eye lens cores and five otolith cores from

queen snapper that we used in our validation.

Size distributions for the U.S. Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico,

so we can do comparisons between the two, and then something that

was very exciting was extending the longevity estimates for queen

snapper, and so our previous maximum age, in the last SEDAR that

was conducted on queen snapper, was eight years old.

Since then, with our results, our preliminary results that we have

received, our youngest fish, and our smallest sample, at a fork

length of 179 millimeters, has been validated at an age of five,

and one of our largest, at a fork length of 708 millimeters, and

so those two eyes on the last page belong to these two fish, that

has been validated to an age of forty-six years old, which

absolutely dramatically increases our estimates of longevity for

this species.

You can see those results plotted on the graph to the right as

part of that linear declined with the coral and known age otoliths,

and you can also see that the red circles are all of the eye lens

samples that we sent in for validation, so you can get an idea of

the spread of our data. In addition to all of that, we are also

computing growth functions and estimates of natural mortality for

queen snapper.

Really quick, I just wanted to acknowledge a few of the

collaborators that I have been fortunate enough to work with, and,

also, I’m going to see if this video plays, so we can do that while

I’m talking.

There is quite a bit of distance, obviously, between Florida and

Puerto Rico, and so there are a lot of folks that have helped to

ensure the success of this project, and my direct collaborators

are Andy David, Steve Smith, and Ryan Caillouet with NOAA Fisheries

have assisted with the video work and the sampling frame of this

survey, in addition to Dr. Shervette of the University of South

Carolina Aiken, who has contributed funding and a bunch of

assistance to actually process all of our age validation samples,

and she’s been invaluable to the age and growth project.

Of course, last, but absolutely not least, the commercial

fishermen, all of our observers, and the team at HJR Reefscaping,

who was our contracting company on the ground. In Puerto Rico

specifically, Michelle Scharer and Hector Ruiz. Without that field

team on the ground in Puerto Rico, we would not have been able to

complete this field sampling and data collection, and so a huge

thank you to everyone there, and that’s just my email address at

the top there, and so, if anyone has questions that they don’t

want to ask now, or that they think of later, feel free to reach

out to me at that email, and I think that’s all I have.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Kate. Great presentation. We are really

behind schedule, and I have one question for Kate, or two, and

then we’ll move along, please. Please send the questions to her

email, like she posted, and we can follow-up on that. I wish we

had

little more time. I have Stacy.

STACY --: Kate, that was a great presentation, and I just have a

couple of questions. How many habitats did you identify during

your study, and did you see any patterns in habitat preference of

queen snapper between like sex or size composition in your study?

KATE OVERLY: We have video for 471 stations, and so all of those

have varying degrees of habitat, and so I can absolutely chat with

you more about that. We basically classified our habitat according

to the CMECS standard, or the Coastal and Marine Ecological

Classification Standard, and so I have all of that data in general

classification, but, since we sampled so many videos, it probably

wouldn’t be great for me to sit and list them all out right now.

In addition to that, we’re also doing our analyses right now, and

so I don’t want to say too much, and there’s a lot on kind of that

first slide that I showed, with that kind of rocky sponge habitat,

and we see a lot on that lower reef rocky sponge, but we also see,

especially in the northeast, a lot around sand, and I don’t know

if that’s due to foraging and that sort of thing, which it probably

is, and so we’re going to try and be digging into that, once we

finish basically our habitat classification and our percent bottom

coverage for year-two. We’re just about done with that, and so we

should have results for all of that very, very soon.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Kate. We’re going to pass to the next

presentation, because we are very much behind schedule, and we 1 need to gain some time, and we have the Queen Triggerfish

Reproductive Biology in the U.S. Caribbean by Jesus Rivera.

MIGUEL ROLON: Marcos, we have a person that has a presentation at

10:15, and so what we propose to do, and I just talked to Graciela, 6 is that, right after Jesus Rivera’s presentation at 10:15, and we

will play with the time, because, right now, it’s about 10:00. At

10:15, we will have the presentation on coral reef, and then Alida

Ortiz will follow with her presentation at 10:30, and so right

afer the presentation of the coral.

MARCOS HANKE: Okay. Let’s start with Jesus. Jesus, welcome. Go

ahead.

JESUS RIVERA: My name is Jesus Rivera, and I’m going to talk about

my presentation of reproductive biology of queen triggerfish in

the U.S. Caribbean waters, specifically in St. Thomas, in

collaboration with Dr. Shervette and Julian Magras.

Effective fisheries management requires a detailed understanding

of the life history strategies of managed species. Queen

triggerfish is one of the most productive fisheries in the U.S.

Caribbean waters, but the lack of current species-specific life

history information in the 2013 SEDAR They cannot make a

prediction for the future of the stock, and so we are trying to

address the reproductive biology of the fish, and also age. Dr.

Shervette talked a little bit about our age work.

Some previous studies related to reproductive biology of queen

triggerfish are data from Jamaica, from Aiken in 1983; Puerto Rico

and St. Thomas from Manooch and Drennon in 1987; Puerto Rico and

St. Croix, and that was part of my thesis in 2018; and in St. Croix

with Bryan et al. in 2019, that publication. Also, we have Brazil,

with Ferreira de Menezes in 1979.

For Aiken, they just found, in Jamaica, that the queen triggerfish

season goes from January through March and then May and then July

to December. Manooch and Drennon also showed some They had

some problem in the collection of those spawning capable fish, and

we are going to look at that in a bit, and they also reported

We have more publications on triggerfish, but they are not related

to reproductive biology, and so I didn’t include it, and that’s

mostly for diet stuff.

Queen triggerfish, we have a picture here from St. Croix, and we

have a triggerfish in the habitat, but, also, in this fishery, we 1 have something that looks at the nest of the queen triggerfish, 2 and that is kind of similar to other triggerfish species, like a

gray triggerfish, and they have a nest, and they take care of the

nest, both of the sexes, and that is just something that we don’t

address, because we didn’t propose to do that in our plan, but we

also We tried to get samples on kind of areas where the fishermen

said they saw a nest, but we Fishermen say that they see

something similar, but we don’t have any kind of specific data of

where is the nest or a spawning ground, in this particular case.

The other 2019 work on St. Croix, they have presented areas of

nesting, but it’s in the closed area. This is just to show how

they try to clean the nest, and then the females select it.

Our study objectives are to determine and compare the size

structure and the sex ratios, to determine a size at sexual

maturity, if we can, determine a spawning seasonality.

We have the three islands of the U.S. Caribbean, and there is

Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, and St. Croix, and something really

important that you have to understand is that the three islands

use different gears, and Puerto Rico is the one that has the most

gears to catch triggerfish, and they are multispecies, and so one

gear can catch more than one species, and St. Thomas/St. Croix are

different, and we’re going to show a table later, and, again,

preference in the islands for the fish are different. They are

close, but they are really different in what the people like to

get from the fisheries, at least in terms of reef fish.

What we did is we just propose to target sixteen samples per month,

and we’re trying to cover all the size classes per month, and so

we just get the fishermen and the information and the gear that

they use, and we measure the fish, and we weigh the fish, and then

we remove the gonad, and, also, the age structure and other stuff

that are not related to this presentation.

We assess the sex by histology, and not all the people do

histology, and they just open the fish and see if it’s male or

female and that’s it, and so, quickly, because we want to stay on

schedule, that is the process. We get the fish, and we extract

the gonad, and we use three different processes, depending on the

situation.

Then the reproductive criteria that we use is in that way for both

sexes, and immature, developing fish, spawning capable, and that

is where we just see whether the fish is spawning or not, and they

have a classification that is actively spawning that we can talk

about later if you want, and then regressing, which is after they

spawn, and then regenerating and just preparing again to go to 1 developing, and it’s like a cycle, and so you don’t go back to

immature, but you just go back to developing and continue the loop.

Our results, I will be presenting the summary of sample

collections. In the top, in red, that is St. Thomas. That is the

purpose of this presentation, and the other two, in orange, are

the Puerto Rico and St. Croix data that are already published, and

so we have 690 samples in total, and seven are fishery-independent,

and then 683 are fishery-dependent.

As Dr. Shervette explained, that’s a problem for some of the

analysis, but, also, hearing the explanation of the guy that made

the question, we probably need more data, because that is a data-

limited species, and so we still need more data, and we will

explain why in a bit.

Also, here are more specific results of the fish collection, and

we have the depth range, and we have the total number of fish, the

percentage of male and female, per island, and then the mean size

overall over male and female and the unknown fish, which are fish

that are just gutted, or they are just smaller, or we just missed

the slide and we just tried to figure it out and do it again, and

so it’s pretty low.

Now I will show you On the left side, I just show you the

distribution of combined sexes for the three islands, just for an

overview, and red is Puerto Rico, green is St. Thomas, and that is

purpose of this presentation, and blue is St. Croix. Then, on the

right, we see the weight versus length plots for males and females

of queen triggerfish in St. Thomas.

I think that you can’t see it so well, the equation, but the

equation looks kind of similar to the one that we just published

through the other islands.

For size structure and sex ratios, all three islands, the size

frequency distribution of male and female were significantly

different, meaning that males are larger than females in the

distribution. For sex ratio, the chi-square analysis showed that

Puerto Rico was the only difference from the one-to-one expected

ratio, and, in St. Thomas and St. Croix, the sex ratio was

expected, and so there’s no differing in the distribution of male

and females in St. Croix and St. Thomas, but it was different in

Puerto Rico, having more males than females, I think, if I remember

it well.

That is the length frequency analysis from St. Thomas, and the

other two are published already, and we can see the size class of 1 350, and then the males start The males are in blue, and they 2 start getting in a bigger proportion, and then just females start 3 to decay with length, the frequency.

Most of the questions that we have from fishermen is what we do

with the fish, and we have a queen triggerfish gonad, male gonad,

and that is a gonad, and it’s really weird to find that big gonad

in triggerfish. On this side, we have the histology of the gonad,

and that is from an immature fish, and now we have the On the

left, we have the The purple, or blue, is the sperm, and, on

the right-side, the right-picture, is the gonad.

The results for seasonality for the males of queen triggerfish for

Puerto Rico and St. Thomas, we are focusing on the red part, and

that is the spawning capable criteria, and they just show that we

have spawning capable males around the year, and so it’s not too

different, and we are not surprised at that, and we see that the

males in most of the species are in that kind of way.

For this presentation, in St. Thomas, we are looking also at the

red one, and this is, again, all year. We have spawning capable

males around the year, and so that will not help us to see if there

is any seasonality on the species, and so we will look at females.

Also, on the right side of the screen, I will show you the size-

at-maturity for males.

The percentage of L 50, and that is the point where the length

Where the fish At least 50 percent of the fish that will be

that length will be mature, and so it’s a 50 percent chance that

it’s sexually mature. For this particular case, it’s 156, and I

just put a circle at their value of where I was looking with Dr.

Shervette, but, because I don’t have access to the campus, we

cannot We have only one immature male, and that is that value.

The analysis for the L 50 doesn’t work really here, because we

have a lot of mature males before that value of immature, and so

we are comparing one immature against three-hundred-and-forty-

something fish species, and then the size overlaps.

Now we go with the females, and the females are more interesting.

We have a big gonad for a queen triggerfish in the upper picture,

and the picture below is a developing female, just by experience,

but I don’t have any idea It’s really hard to address,

microscopically, a gonad for a fish.

Then this is a representation of how we look at an immature female

for queen triggerfish, and all these purple dots are just primary

oocytes, and so really immature, for sure, for the picture. Now

I am showing you a developing female, and we have a different sized

oocyte, and we still have primary growth, but we have a bigger

oocyte, and then we have a spawning-capable female, and that is

what it looks like. The histology will help us to confirm the

seasonality plots.

Again, this is Puerto Rico and St. Croix, and it’s already

published, and now we have a different We’re looking for the

red, and so we see the red starts in December, and then it continues

in January. In February, we have Then March through August,

and so, also, in St. Croix, it’s the same. The season starts in

December and then goes through August. For St. Thomas, they are

not yet reported.

We find the same, and it’s just only one change. We used spawning

capable and actively spawning, and this is a sub-division of

spawning capable, but it’s still the same. We have actively

spawning females starting in December and continuing through

August.

Then we measure the gonad and then divide it by the weight and

multiply it by 100, and that gives us an index. The peak in St.

Croix was February, and the peak in Puerto Rico was December and

January, and the peaks for females was also January.

The L 50 of female, the size at maturity, the L 50, result from

St. Thomas females was 240 millimeters, the fork length. Again,

it’s a 50 percent chance, at 240, that the triggerfish that you

catch, if it’s a female, can be 50 percent mature or immature.

For the results of all this stuff, the maturity At the end of

this presentation, we just have, again, in yellow the data, and

that is the one that hasn’t been published yet, and then, for

Puerto Rico and St. Croix, we have the L 50, the L 50 with their

confidence intervals, and, again, we have also In the immature

column, we just include the N is number of immature fish that we

have.

In St. Thomas, the males, we only have one, but we have to double-

check if that is an immature male or not. If it’s not, I will

just remove that value, and I will run the equation and the

analysis, and it doesn’t give me a value, because I don’t have any

immature, and so they cannot compare. There cannot be a

proportion.

With this graph, I just want to show that we need just more data.

I mean, it’s a really data-limited species, but, still, we need

more small class-size fish, and, also, St. Croix also has like a

plate-size preference fish, and so we also need the bigger ones

and the smaller ones to try to complete the pictures for all the

three islands, and I don’t have anything more to say, but just

thanks to the people like Rick Nemeth, Dr. Hoenig, Sara Thomas in

the USVI, Dr. Shervette and her lab, all the people in the

Fisheries Research Lab in DNR, the Nature Conservancy in St. Croix,

Dr. Brendan Turley at the University of Miami and Nitin

Ravikanthachari from USC, who helped me with the R codes.

Then the Puerto Rico and St. Croix fishermen, and, also, in the

presentation is Julian, and that is what was really helpful.

Without him, we could not finish this sampling. Then the people

of MARMAP and NOAA funding. Any questions?

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Jesus. Jesus, we’re going to save the

questions and to do it through the chat. Please pay attention in

the chat, to answer the questions, because we are really tight on

schedule.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much. The presentation was great.

Graciela, you have somebody to present? Can you help me?

GRACIELA

I think we have Jenny Moore online to

talk about the critical habitat designation for corals and the

coral-reef-forming basis of the fisheries here. Jen, are you

JENNIFER MOORE: Thank you for squeezing me in. This is kind of

a surprise for us, that the rule published when it did, and so

sorry that we didn’t give you much more of a heads-up that this

was coming.

My name is Jennifer Moore, and I work with NOAA Fisheries in the

Southeast Regional Office, in the Protected Resources Division,

and I’ve been working on this proposed critical habitat for five

Caribbean corals for about six years.

If you remember, it was 2014 that we listed five Caribbean corals

as threatened, and we proposed this critical habitat on November

27 of this year, and we have a sixty-day public comment period

that is open, and it will close on January 26. Then, based on our

statute, we should have a final critical habitat one year from the

date we proposed it, and so that would be November 27, 2021.

Just to take you through kind of how we designate critical habitat,

critical habitat is required by the Endangered Species Act for all

listed species, unless it wouldn’t actually aid in their recovery,

and so we go through this step-wise approach, and the first step

we do is we identify the geographical areas that are occupied by

the species at the time that they were listed. Then, within that

area, we identify physical and biological features that are

essential to their conservation, what are the things that the

species need to support all of their life history, so that we can

recover the species, and we protect those features within the

habitat.

We also have to determine whether those features actually require

special management, and there might be things that are part of the

habitat, but that there are no activities that would adversely

affect them, and so they don’t actually require any special

management, and then, based on those things, we identify the

specific areas that contain those physical and biological

features, and we map them.

To start off, we look at the geographic area occupied by the

species, and these species are present throughout the wider

Caribbean, and so basically anywhere there is a coral reef in the

Caribbean is where the species occur, and that is the geographic

area occupied. It’s not every single location under which the

coral actually resides, but, basically, geographic area occupied

means the range of the species.

However, critical habitat is a U.S. regulation, and it only can be

designated in the United States, and so, while the species are

present throughout the wider Caribbean and in the thirty or so

nations of the Caribbean, we can only designate critical habitat

within the jurisdiction of the United States.

The real meat of critical habitat is the physical and biological

features, and, in this case, we have identified that the main

recovery goal for these species is facilitating reproduction and

then supporting their survival and growth after reproduction, and

so we have identified the physical and biological feature as

reproductive, recruitment, growth, and maturation habitat, and

there’s a lot of words here on this screen, but, basically, what

it boils down to is the hard substrate that the corals need to

attach to to grow and live out their lives and then the associated

water column over the top of those areas of hard substrate.

Then we further describe those features by identifying these kind

of attributes that increase the conservation value, and it’s

basically what are the qualities of that habitat, that hard

substrate in the water column, that make a good habitat for corals

to grow and survive, and so, in terms of the substrate, we’re

looking for things that would promote successful recruitment of

the coral larvae, and so crevices and presence of crustose

coralline algae. Also, those reefscapes have to be where the coral

is actually going to be attaching and growing.

They need to be relatively free of sediment and macroalgae, and,

also, the waters have to have certain characteristics of ranges of

temperature, aragonite saturation, which is related to how much

calcium carbonate is in the water, levels of nutrients, and, you

know, corals thrive in relatively low-nutrient waters, and, also,

they have to have relatively clear water, and so those are the

things in the water column that basically support corals, and then,

in the absence of contaminants, and we know that there are lots of

contaminants that affect the corals’ ability to grow and reproduce,

and so waters that lack those things are what are going to actually

support recovery.

This is really the meat of critical habitat, is defining this

biological and The physical and biological features of the

habitat, and this is what we look at when we look at what the

impact of critical habitat is, is what might adversely affect these

things.

We define where this is, the feature that we want to protect

through critical habitat designation, and then we go on to identify

the specific areas that might contain those essential features.

What you may be familiar with is the Acropora critical habitat

designation, and that critical habitat designation is still valid,

and nothing changes with that designation with the new proposed

critical habitat.

In that designation, we have one critical habitat unit that is for

both of the species, for both elkhorn and staghorn coral, whereas,

in this new proposed critical habitat rule, we are actually

identifying twenty-eight individual units, and that’s basically

one for each of the five species in the locations that they occur.

For example, pillar coral only occurs from about one to twenty-

five meters depth, and so the boundaries are really One of the

set of boundaries of critical habitat are those depth contours,

and then we look at the U.S. geographic distribution. They don’t

occur north of Lake Worth Inlet in Palm Beach County, Florida, and

so that’s the northernmost boundary, and they do go all the way

out to the Dry Tortugas, and they are common within all of the

waters of Puerto Rico, the USVI, and Navassa, and so, in those

depths, from one to twenty-five meters, it’s where critical habitat

is designated for pillar coral.

You can see that each of the individual other corals have their

own depth distributions and particular geographic distributions,

mostly that vary in Florida, and they don’t really The

geographic distribution doesn’t really vary in the Caribbean, and,

really, in Florida, it’s just about how far north they occur along

the southeast Florida coast.

I’m just going to run through the maps real quick, and this shows

you the maximum extent of the new critical habitat designation,

and, basically, this is for our corals that occur from half a meter

out to ninety meters depth, and that’s a couple of the Orbicella

species and Mycetophyllia ferox.

This is the maximum extent for Florida, and this is the maximum

extent for Puerto Rico. In St. Thomas and St. John, you can see

here that this is a single unit for these two islands, because of

those depth contours. However, if you were to look at the map for

pillar coral, for example, you would see that there would be a

break in the units between St. Thomas and St. John, because of the

deeper depths between those islands.

Here’s the maximum extent for St. Croix, and then I apologize for

the poor GIS data, but this is the maximum extent for Navassa

Island, and this is the Flower Garden Banks, which are off of the

coast of Texas.

This is something you probably are more interested in, is what is

the difference between the existing Acropora critical habitat,

which is from zero to thirty meters, and the maximum extent of

this proposed critical habitat, which is out to ninety meters

depth, and so you can see that there are some areas that are new,

as compared to Acropora critical habitat, but what is not new is

the fact that, basically, we are designating the ranges of these

species, and so, basically, anywhere that the species occur, we

have been having to consider them in our federal Section 7

consultations since the time of listing, and so, really, there

isn’t that much new that we have to really think about in a new

consultation, because we would have to consider the species that

were listed in these areas outside of Acropora critical habitat

all along.

That takes us to kind of what I have been alluding to, is what is

the effect of critical habitat? When you have a listing, there 1 are individual prohibitions against doing things to the actual 2 species, and so, since the corals have been listed in 2014, there 3 are things that can and cannot be done with regard to the corals

that might affect private citizens.

However, critical habitat’s only affect is via that ESA Section 7

interagency consultation with other federal agencies for their

activities that may affect the proposed critical habitat, and so,

in looking at those physical and biological features that we

identified, we then consider, well, what are the federal activities

that are either funded, authorized, or carried out by a federal

agency that might affect the critical habitat, and so here’s a

list of the activities that we have identified that may be

authorized, funded, or carried out by a federal agency that may

affect the critical habitat.

However, when we look at the impact of critical habitat, we have

to consider what might be an incremental impact above and beyond

the baseline, and so, again, as I alluded to before, the ESA

requires Section 7 consultation on federal activities that may

affect the species.

Well, because the species occur throughout their range, we have

been having to consult on the impacts to the species since they

were listed, and, basically, because corals themselves are their

own habitat, in many regards, the same activities that affect the

corals would also potentially affect their proposed critical

habitat, and so many of these things would not We would not

require a federal agency to change their activities based on the

new proposed critical habitat designation, because of the fact

that the species occur in those same geographic areas.

Also, we do have a substantial overlap of the new proposed critical

habitat with the Acropora critical habitat, and there is a general

agreement between the essential features, and so, again, those

things that we might ask federal agencies to do differently because

of the proposed critical habitat, we would have already asked them

to do differently, because of the listing of the corals and because

of the Acropora critical habitat.

In kind of going through that thought process, we identified that

protected area management, fisheries management, and aquaculture

would be There would be no new consultations that would be

triggered solely on the basis of this proposed critical habitat,

and that’s not to say that you wouldn’t have to consult on this

proposed critical habitat, but these particular categories of

activities all would have to have considered the species, Acropora

critical habitat, and those project modifications that we would

ask federal agencies to do That would stem from, likely, the

listing and the existing critical habitat and not solely from the

proposed critical habitat.

That’s really how critical habitat rules impact the public, is via

those Section 7 consultations, and how we might ask a federal

agency to change their activities that they either fund, authorize,

or carry out because of the critical habitat designation.

I slipped over a slide here, but I wanted to also explain to you

that there are some parts within those big maps that are not

critical habitat, and so I know those boundaries can scare people,

because they’re really, really large geographic areas, but we don’t

have the data to map exactly those essential features that I

described very, very precisely to inform the public exactly where

they are, and so, unfortunately, we have to draw the maps with

these large areas, but, within those areas, the only thing that is

critical habitat is where those essential features exist.

For example, if you have a large seagrass bed, that is not critical

habitat, because you don’t have hard substrate, and so basically,

what is not critical habitat is where the essential feature is not

present, and so that’s the one thing that you do when you kind of

look at the map and you kind of subtract out what is not critical

habitat.

Also, because we have a provision in the ESA that says we cannot

designate critical habitat when there is an integrated natural

resource management plan at military installations, that would

provide for the conservation of species. If the things that they

are doing to take care of their facility have benefits to the

listed species, we are not able to designate critical habitat

there, and so we have one military installation, at the Naval Air

Station Key West, that is not designated as critical habitat.

Additionally, we basically want to only designate critical habitat

for those things that are going to support the conservation of the

corals, and so managed areas, things that are like dredge

navigation channels, shipping basins, vessel berths, anchorages,

things that are constantly disturbed and would not provide good

habitat, are not part of the designation.

Similarly, artificial substrates, like aids to navigation,

seawalls, boat ramps, and you get the idea, these things do not

provide the features that we need for the coral, and so those

things are not part of the designation, and, lastly, we have one

exclusion on the basis of national security impacts, and that’s

the South Florida Measuring Facility, which is near Fort 1 Lauderdale, and it’s a small area that is carved out of critical

habitat that is not designated as critical habitat.

If you have an activity that either falls solely within one of

these areas or is only affecting one of these types of substrates,

and like if you were say putting in a new mooring ball, or you

were maintaining a mooring ball, then that activity would not have

any impacts to critical habitat, because it’s actually not critical

habitat, and so we wouldn’t have to have you change your activity

at all, because there wouldn’t be effects to the essential feature,

and so that basically takes me through things that are and are not

critical habitat and how it may impact the public.

Obviously, we are accepting public comment through January 26, and

the docket number is there, and so, if you go to regulations.gov,

you can submit your comment using that docket number, and, if

anybody has any questions, my email address is there on the screen.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much for the presentation. Graciela.

MIGUEL ROLON: Marcos, because of the time, the questions can be

addressed to her at the email that she has there or in the chat.

MARCOS HANKE: Yes. We are going to move along, and thank you

very much. Pay attention on the chat, Jennifer, for any questions

that people might have.

JENNIFER MOORE: Okay. Thank you very much.

MIGUEL ROLON: How about a five-minute break, and then we can go

to Alida’s report?

MARCOS HANKE: A five-minute break, and we will come back at 10:41.

(Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.)

MARCOS HANKE: We are going to start with the presentation of Alida

Ortiz and the Outreach & Education Advisory Panel. Alida, go

ahead.

ALIDA ORTIZ: Good morning, everyone. Before anything, I want to

wish you happy holidays and a happy new year, and the next year

may be a little bit different from what we have right now, and I

will try to go through my presentation on the Outreach & Education

Advisory Panel as fast as I can, but we have a lot of information

There were a lot of meetings that we attended as part of the

Outreach & Education Advisory Panel, and it was from September

through November, and we had meetings for webinars, and we had

another Outreach & Education meeting, and then we had a meeting

with the DAPs, with the liaisons, and then we had meetings with

UPR Sea Grant, to develop materials, and we also discussed

stakeholder engagement with the Lenfest group and the Pew

Charitable Trusts. Then we had also a meeting with Wilson and

Christina, and, also, we worked with a webinar for tourism with

the Puerto Rico Tourism Company.

I would like to just make an update on where we are with the

Sustainable Seafood Consumption Campaign, which I think it’s

probably the widest, and even the more aggressive, campaign that

we have ever had.

First of all, the calendar of 2021 is in the It’s also in the

direction of how to promote the underutilized species, and we did

that with the 2020 and then the 2021, and we also are working on

the recipe book that I gave some information in the previous

meeting, and we are already working with the recipes and the

introduction and the catalog of the fishes that are used in the

recipes, and I think this is going to be probably one of the most

important products that we will have for sustainable seafood.

The webinar that we gave for the Tourism Company, to me, it was

very important, because it is bringing the sustainable seafood

campaign to the wider people, because the tourists guide, or the

tourism guides, for the people to take to the tourists at the

restaurants, and to the places where they sell fish, and so they

have to know about this campaign, and they were very interested.

Marcos Hanke and myself made the presentation, and, from that

presentation, a group has been formed, a working group, with the

tourism company, where we are going to develop other activities

and see different ways of reaching all the audiences that we can.

We are also working on short videos that Jannette Ramos and

Christina Olan are producing, and probably Christina will speak a

little bit on them in her presentation of the social media, but

this has videos directed to the consumer, to the person that cooks

in the house, and they are very simple and very easy to follow and

very attractive.

Then we would like also to develop a guide to analyze those

underutilized species and how can we use them in educational

products and how we can have people learn about those species that

are available and that are edible and that are easy to cook and 1 would take a little bit of pressure from those species that we use

historically all the time.

We are also working with materials for the marine fisheries

ecosystem of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, so we can make a

wider distribution of that, and one of them is a new short video,

a one-shot video, of the habitat of particular concern, utilizing

the information that we have already on the essential fish

habitats, and this is just to bring to the public the importance

of knowing what they are doing on the coast or in the mountains

that will affect those essential fish habitats.

These videos are being produced, and they will be available in the

social media as Christina receives them, and then we I am trying

to work on a request that I had from Nelson Crespo, which I am

very, very grateful, about how can we produce the materials from

the book for the 4-H groups, and so I’m working on a slide

presentation on the basic concepts that we discuss in that book,

so that the 4-H groups that are still meeting virtually can use

them.

The other project that we are working on now in Outreach &

Education is a series of posters, and the first one is a review of

the poster on the life cycle of the queen conch, and you have it

right here, what it consists of, and the text has been reviewed

and updated, and also the art, and this is just about to be

finished, and we are very grateful for the support that we have

received from Dr. Richard Appeldoorn and Graciela Garcia-Moliner

and from Miguel Rolon and from the people that have seen it, that

have seen the text, and they have sent us their recommendations.

This one, we will send it to Miguel for printing early in December.

The other posters that we are working on are posters probably in

the similar approach that we have for Nassau grouper and for mutton

snapper, with a Spanish, English, and French versions, because

they are going to go to the international campaigns, where the

U.S. Caribbean Council has The Caribbean Council is working,

and it will have the biological aspects, like life cycle and prey

and predators and spawning aggregation seasons, and all this will

be in a very good illustration with very easy-to-understand

language that the fishers and the consumers can get the

information.

We are working also on outreach materials and protecting marine

areas in the USVI, and this is in response to a meeting, a very,

very important meeting, that we had with the DAPs and with the

local government and with the liaisons in the Virgin Islands, so

that the marine protected areas, like the Grammanik Bank and the 1 MCD, and probably the parks and monuments, all those areas that 2 are protected for the fishes and for the species that live there,

we can have information in the form of fact sheets and posters and

stickers and wallet cards and short videos for social media, so

that they The tourists and all the people that go to this area

recognize the importance of following the regulations or

respecting the habitat that is there, and that is very sensitive,

but it’s also very, very important for the entire fisheries in the

Virgin Islands.

At some time, we may do the same thing for the Puerto Rico areas

in the Bajo de Sico and those areas where there are regulations

for fishing. We would like to open it now for Christina to give

us the information on the social media, please.

MIGUEL ROLON: Christina, before you go on, the last slide that

was presented by Alida responds to a request by fishers from St.

Thomas, Julian and Tony Blanchard and Ruth Gomez, and so, once we

have these materials, we want them to check what we produced, just

to make sure that we covered the items that were of interest to

them, and then we will go ahead and make it a final product, and

this is proposed between Sea Grant and the CFMC, with the

collaboration of Dr. Alida Ortiz and others, and it will go through

CARICOOS, which is the entity that will be allowed to manage these

proposals and the proposals for St. Croix. Thank you.

ALIDA ORTIZ: Actually, we have a meeting with them next week, and

we

proposal.

MIGUEL ROLON: Okay. Sorry, Christina. Thank you.

CHRISTINA OLAN: Thank you. Good morning. My name is Christina,

and I work for the Caribbean Fishery Management Council, as the

Social Media Content Developer. Thank you for the opportunity of

presenting what we are doing for social media.

We continue publishing information on seasonal closures,

announcements of webinars offered by other agencies and

organizations, NOAA bulletins, and announcements of our meetings.

For species, we have been producing slide shows about species that

have seasonal closures. We also publish information related to

essential fish habitats. We also share the administrative orders

from the DNR and also communications from the DPNR, especially

during the pandemic.

We have been sharing AmandOceano Facebook lives, especially the

ones related to fish identification and lionfish, and, also, we

want to Especially, I want to thank all the persons that are

always sharing the information and providing their input for our

posts, especially to the CFMC staff, fishers, scientists,

agencies, and stakeholders.

A couple of months ago, in September and October, we broadcasted

two Facebook lives, where we explained the use of the boating app

developed by CARICOOS, and it was an effort among CARICOOS, Puerto

Rico Sea Grant, and the Caribbean Fishery Management Council.

In YouTube, we have now the recordings of the DAP meetings and the

regular meetings, and we also have a video on ocean acidification

that was funded by the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program, and, also,

we have the recording of the Responsible Seafood Consumption

webinar sponsored by the Puerto Rico Tourism Company, where Alida

and Marcos were the presenters.

We have also been producing a monthly bulletin, and we published

it in November and December, and the bulletin includes information

regarding CFMC meetings, underutilized species, fishers,

sustainability, and information in our social media platforms.

The bulletin is available through Facebook, the CFMC webpage, and

email.

If you have questions, please let me know, and I am thankful for

all the recommendations and suggestions that our stakeholders and

fishers and agencies and other persons are always sharing with me

to improve the content that we share to our social media platforms.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much, Christina. Next.

CHRISTINA OLAN: I also want to mention that, in October, that was

the seafood month, and we also published a couple of recipes that

were provided by Jannette Ramos, and it was a collaborative effort

between Jannette, and also Michelle Scharer, that sent us

scientific information about the triggerfish, and so we published

two recipes, and, also, we shared information related to seafood

consumption. Thank you.

ALIDA ORTIZ: Thank you, Christina. Great work. As

recommendations to the council that we have now, these outreach

initiatives to educate the public on the values and importance of

the MPAs for a sustainable fishery is very important. We recommend

that the council consider support for all the initiatives that we

are taking now in the USVI and to promote an extension of those

same type of materials for the Puerto Rico protected areas. They

are needed. People have to know where are the areas protected and

why are they protected.

With the responsible consumer and sustainable fishery outreach

initiative, to us, it is very important, because it involves the

consumer in the fisheries protection. The protection of that

resource is not just the responsibility of the fisher or the

managers, but it’s the responsibility of us as consumers, and so

we would like to extend this initiative that we are doing in Puerto

Rico to the USVI, and we request the support of the council for

these projects.

As we decided in the meetings that we had with the liaisons last

month, I think it is important each one of the liaisons These

are the people that connect outreach and education with the fishers

and with the community where they live, and so we have Wilson

Santiago from Puerto Rico, and, next, we will have Nikita Charles

from St. Croix, and, after that, we will have Nicole Greaux from

St. Thomas/St. John. Wilson.

WILSON SANTIAGO: Good morning to everyone. This is Wilson

Santiago here, the Liaison Office for Puerto Rico. The 2020

liaison participation, I have been coordinating the PEPCO program

resources and presentations, and I think I’m going to finish

everything on the PEPCO program in December, and I am planning to

start in the end of January of 2021.

The other thing is I support Christina Olan with the new posts of

the CFMC social media regarding closures and DNER administrative

orders for Puerto Rico fishers, and I have participated in

different workshops regarding fisheries education. I have started

making a database of the participants of the PEPCO program, where

there are telephone numbers and emails, and so I haven’t finished

that. Right now, I have around 430 contacts, and so I will work

towards that.

This database that I was talking about, it will work with the

outreach of the council and the outreach of the DNER and any other

agency that needs that database, and so, when it’s finished, I

will send it to the CFMC and to the DNER, so we can use it.

In this database, I started making it because of the In the

last meeting, one of my proposals was making like a identification

message, and so we can weekly or monthly send notifications

regarding education to all the fishers and fishing community about

closures and everything regarding the fisheries, and so I am

planning to, in 2021, so we can start these push notifications.

Also, I have been supporting the CFMC and finding pictures and

area of catch per species for the 2021 CFMC calendar. I have been

supporting fishers with issues and information of the DNER state 1 and federal closures, and I have been giving educational materials

to the fishers, educational materials from the CFMC.

As the liaison officer of Puerto Rico, one of my responsibilities

are taking the issues regarding the fishers in Puerto Rico and

like, right now, in the pandemic, the majority issue within the

fishers in Puerto Rico has been the licensing and permitting

procedures of the DNER. I have been working with the DNER Office

of Permits, so I can be updated weekly. When the fishers call me,

I can tell them in what stage is the permit or the license, and

that is like the most issues right now in the pandemic for the

fishers.

I also help the new fishers, and so, right now, the DNER has around

2,000 fishing permits, and they are new, and there is a lot of

misinformation about the fishing closures and statistics and

reports and licenses and permits for state and federal waters in

Puerto Rico, and so I think we can outreach those fishers and

educate them with the PEPCO program, and so that is one of the

tasks that we have with the PEPCO program.

The other issue that fishers in Puerto Rico have shown, and we

have this issue like every year, is the law enforcement to watch

the closures and illegal commercial fishing in state and federal

waters, and so that is all for me, and, if you have any questions,

you can send them via the chat. Thank you.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Wilson. Nikita.

NIKITA CHARLES: Good morning. First, I would like to thank

everyone for having me. My name is Nikita Charles, and I’m the

CFMC Liaison for St. Croix. As you know, right now, we’re working

on the Reef Responsible Sustainable Seafood Initiative, and we’ve

been dedicated to having the program up and running again at full

capacity by the beginning of the year, and our goal for the

initiative is to promote the Virgin Islanders to catch, purchase,

serve, and consume locally-harvested seafood. Reef Responsible

wants to work with the community, through engagement and education

of commercial fishers and restaurants, to make better choices in

seafood consumption.

In terms of education and material, we’ve recently gotten our

posters and brochures, and we’ve worked with the Department of

Fish and Wildlife to get the educational materials printed out for

like the Fish Fact Book and whatnot, and, with that, we’re going

to be dispersing and promoting and educating the community about

the program.

In terms of social media, as a team, we’ve established

incorporating weekly polls on social media outlets, such as

Facebook and Instagram, to help promote and bring awareness to our

mission, and a shoutout to Danielle from St. Thomas for helping us

add items such as Trivia Tuesday and Fish Spotlight Friday to our

pages, promoting the educational materials, such as the Fish Fact

Books.

For commercial fishers, it’s actually this coming Friday, and we’ll

be welcoming fishers at the reopening of the La Reine Fish Market

and giving them the opportunity to learn more about how we can

help them and how they can sign up for the initiative. Here, we’ll

also establish a voluntary list for them to be able to have a list

of licensed commercial fishers that we can share with the

restaurants in the future.

In terms of restaurant training now, we’ve added more restaurants

to the list of Reef Responsible Restaurants for outreach, and we’re

currently scheduling restaurant trainings for the month of

December. We’ve also been working on establishing monthly Zoom

trainings for them during COVID, and we’re trying to add a

presentation that works actively virtually with individuals, so we

can ask them questions and they can participate better.

We have our Reef Responsible Advisory Council that we’ve been

utilizing, and we’ve got input on the presentation. Just to give

you an idea of what are the rest of the training materials for the

restaurant trainings and Zoom fishing trainings, we decided to add

things like the stony coral tissue loss disease and exhibiting

ways to properly measure legal sizing for purchasing specific types

of catch, that being how to measure and better visually explain

the carapace length and fork length, how to get a better idea of

telling if a fish is fresh, if you’re getting fresh fish, making

sure you’re purchasing from licensed commercial fishers, because

I know that’s a big deal for a lot of people, and how to check for

that. Then there’s discussing the high risk of ciguatera, and I

think that’s all I have for you guys today. Thank you.

ORTIZ: Nicole.

NICOLE GREAUX: Good morning to everyone. Thank you so much for

allowing me to do my presentation at the fishery management

council. My name is Nicole Greaux, and I am the liaison for St.

Thomas/St. John.

First off, I would like to start with saying that we’ve had some

challenges over here on St. Thomas. I lost the expertise of Alexis

Sabine, upon her resignation, and so we’ve really had to start off 1 fresh over here, as far as obtaining information and getting things

like fishery contacts and those kind of items.

We’re starting off with the fishing vending areas. One of the

issues that I have come across, speaking to fishermen at our seven

vending sites, believe it or not, is that they really would like

to know a timeline for repairs and improvements on a lot of the

fish vending areas.

Only two of the fish vending areas that we have here belong to

Fish and Wildlife, or DPNR. The others are more traditional than

designated, and that is going to be a discussion I know that’s

going to be soon-coming. I do believe that Julian Magras, at the

DAP meeting, had spoken about getting in contact with some of the

owners of the properties that are now traditional vending sites.

Representation in events for the fisheries, I have noticed that we

have not had a very strong representation for our local fishers

here, the commercial fishers in the Virgin Islands.

We are hoping, through the Reef Responsible Program, to have more

of our local commercial fishers out and about, so that people can

know the key parts that they play in our fisheries, and also in

helping to get information to the public, as far as the different

species of fish are concerned and also what species of fish are

considered the most desirable. They are also the ones that have

the most information on things like fish growth, fish availability,

and also as far as the ciguatera areas are concerned.

As far as the liaison and fisher discussions go, we have yet to

have a full meeting, and, obviously, COVID has put a damper on a

lot of our meeting capabilities, and, as far as virtual meetings

go, some of the fishers are not very much into having virtual

meetings, and so that’s going to be put on hold until we feel more

comfortable meeting in public.

I mentioned earlier that I went to seven of the fish vending areas,

and I have been visiting the fishermen and their helpers, and they

are quite an amazing group of people, and they have so much

resilience, and I’m very proud of our local commercial fishers,

both here on St. Thomas and in St. John.

Another thing that has come to my attention, while I was going out

to meet the fishers, is that there’s not very much information

that is out for them right now as far as their hurricane relief

funding is concerned, and I am going to ask, since I know that Dr.

Angeli is here on this call, if there can be something that you

and I can discuss, as far as putting together information that I 1 can go ahead and hand out to the fishers, or that we can get

together and speak to them about, so they can have those questions

answered.

The Reef Responsible Initiative that Nikita was talking about is

going to be our main platform for the responsible consumer

campaign, and I’m very proud to be a part of that particular

initiative, because not only is it going to help people learn more

about what sustainable seafood is, but it’s also going to give a

better scope of the fishers available to not only our restaurants,

but also to our local consumers of different fish, and that’s all

I have for now. Thank you.

ALIDA ORTIZ: Thank you so much, especially to the liaisons. I

think the work is magnificent, and I ask you to keep in contact

with us, not just for the meeting that the council has, but, every

time that you have an activity, send it to Christina, or send it

to me, so that we can share how these connections with the fishers

is working, and so thank you. Thank you so much, and so this is

all our presentation. If there are any questions related to the

MIGUEL ROLON: (Mr. Rolon’s comment is not audible on the

recording.)

CHRISTINA OLAN: The title of this proposal is “From Fishers’

Knowledge to Scientific Language: Understanding Essential Fish

Habitat of the Deep Water Snapper Fishery”. The objectives of

this effort is the following. It will be to document what fishers

do in this fishery and how they contribute to science, to create

awareness about the deepwater snapper fishery and essential fish

habitat associated with it, increase the understanding of this

fishery, and inspire stakeholders to support management measures

to protect the fishery and promote sustainability.

This proposal has three phases. The first one is that we will be

recording virtual interviews with scientists that are working with

the deepwater snapper fishery, and we will be producing short

videos. The second one will be interviews to fishers that are

collaborating with research, to highlight the importance of their

contribution and their knowledge of science. Those videos will be

published on YouTube, and, also, we will be working on soundbites

for Facebook and Instagram.

In this part, we are hopefully going to be interviewing fishers

in-person, instead of doing virtual interviews, and then we are

going to produce a video of deepwater snapper fishing, or, in

The other thing that we have here is that the money

for the presentation, I mean for this proposal, comes from the

funds that were approved by the habitat group and the reef fish

group from NOAA that Graciela monitors, and this money has been

approved already, and it will cover, of course, the three islands,

and remember that we have the island-based FMPs, and they will be

implemented accordingly in 2021.

However, this effort will include all fishers from St. Thomas/St.

John, from St. Croix, and from Puerto Rico, of course. The

scientists that we are going to interview include the three

presenters today, and all the presenters, really, that have

anything ongoing, in terms of research, or have done research in

the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, that will be of interest to

the fishers of this area.

The interviews in the field will depend on the COVID guidelines,

and, as they told us yesterday, National Marine Fisheries Service

is still on Phase Zero, until the end of the year, and they have

several phases, but they We envision that, probably by the end

of the third quarter of 2021, we will be able to have the vaccine

and allow people to go in the field. The proposal will cover

probably 2021 and 2022, depending on this COVID thing, and, also,

the timing of interviews with fishers and so forth.

The last part of the proposal includes a video on how to fish

deepwater snappers and groupers, and this idea came from a

conversation with fishermen in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto

Rico, and it will be a fisher-to-fisher talking, and we have, for

example, ex-fishermen from Puerto Rico explaining how he or she

fishes for deepwater snappers and groupers, experience and all

that, and then we will move to the Virgin Islands and see who in

the Virgin Islands fishes for deepwater snappers and groupers, and

that will be posted and available on Facebook for any fisher that

would like to venture into deepwater fishing.

It’s not an easy fish to do, easy fishing to do. Otherwise,

everybody would be doing it, but we believe that this is an answer

to many fishers who have requested more information on how they

can go into deepwater fishing, and this is a commitment that we

made at the beginning of the year with fishers, and, this way, we

will be able to fulfill that. Alida, do you have anything else

that you want to add?

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER:

MIGUEL ROLON: Go ahead, Graciela.

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: So the government conservation program

provided the funds to the council to actually follow the fishers

as they do their fishing and to answer specific questions regarding

temperature at-depth, the water masses where they are fishing, and

so it’s not only the component of how they fish and the knowledge

that they have in selecting the areas and the depths for the size

of fish that they are targeting, but it’s also the oceanography of

that data, to bring their knowledge into the science realm.

I just saw, in a text that Jesus gave, and Virginia, that they

would be very happy to be interviewed, and we have sent some emails

around, to make sure that we encompass both the scientific efforts

that are being conducted and the actual description and

characterization of that fishery as they prosecute that fishery,

and so the key feature is their knowledge being translated into

scientific language and to answer specific questions that they

have regarding the changes that they have noticed in their fishery,

for example temperature.

We are using a CTD at the same time that they are fishing, to get

environmental data and to look at the parameters that might be

impacting the size of the fish and the changes that they notice

when they go to the same area over time, and so this is really

exciting that everyone is working at the same time to include life

history information and actual data from the fishers, to really

characterize this deepwater fishery, and so thank you to everyone

who is participating.

MIGUEL ROLON: Thank you, Graciela.

ALIDA ORTIZ: Miguel, I don’t really have anything else to add,

but just to say thank you to all the collaboration of the Outreach

& Education Advisory Panel, that they keep us in touch, and we

will work closer with the liaisons, and it is important, this

production that is being done for the social media, because we

have to reach the people from every possible way that is available.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much, Alida. Miguel, do you need

anything from the council, or just the presentation?

MIGUEL ROLON: No. In the case of the presentation by Christina,

we wanted to If everybody agrees, we will continue with the

presentation, and we have the funding and the proposal that was

approved and monitored by Graciela, and it calls for the social

media person to be involved, and that’s Christina.

Given that the monies are what we have in the purchase order, we

just wanted to make sure that the council understands that this I

what is going to be done, and, if there is no opposition, we can

continue with the project, or you can have a motion to continue

with this effort, and also to keep collaborating, as suggested by

Dr. Alida Ortiz, to move forward with the project that we have in

Puerto Rico into the U.S. Virgin Islands. That is more or less

what we wanted, and so, either way you do it, it will be fine. If

you want to have a proposal, or a motion, to make it stronger,

that would be up to the Chair.

MARCOS HANKE: Can you help me with the language of the motion?

MIGUEL ROLON: The motion will be to accept the report from Dr.

Alida Ortiz and Christina Olan and to support the proposals

suggested for outreach and education with the participation of the

U.S. Virgin Islands fishers and scientists, as well as those in

Puerto Rico.

MARCOS HANKE: Would any of the council members like to present

that motion?

MIGUEL ROLON: Just say so I move and second.

NICOLE ANGELI: I so move.

MARCOS HANKE: Motion by Nicole. A second then?

MARCOS HANKE: Is there any opposition? Hearing no opposition,

the motion carries. Thank you very much, Miguel. We will move

on.

MIGUEL ROLON: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

MARCOS HANKE: The next presentation will be the Enforcement.

MIGUEL ROLON: The first one is from Puerto Rico. Damaris, are

you going to do the presentation?

DAMARIS DELGADO: Yes. Good morning. For Puerto Rico, as you

know, we have been The Rangers have been aiding with the affairs

related to COVID, but, besides that, they still have been

intervening with the regulations, environmental regulations, 1 associated to fisheries, and we have thirty-five cases of nets, 2 cast nets and trammel nets and crab traps, in the Humacao region, 3 and this information that I am sharing with you is from January to

November. I couldn’t get information from the last time that we

reported, but this is aggregated data on the interventions from

the Rangers from January to November.

We have twenty-three cases of cast nets in the region, in the

Humacao region, five cases of trammel nets, and seven cases for

crab traps in that region. Besides that, there were several cases

of beach seine, the chinchorro, and so, in regard to the

chinchorro, we had four cases of that.

In the south region, there were a lot of interventions in the south

region, including one with the beach seine in the river mouth of

Nigua River in Salinas, and there were nineteen cases of

interventions of hook-and-line in that same region, the south

region and the southeast.

We had one case of handline in Salinas, five cases of lobster pots

in the south region, several cases of lobsters, because of not

fulfilling the size, the required size, and we had three cases of

interventions for not having licenses or permits, including

expired licenses, but mainly because they didn’t have licenses or

permits.

There was also two interventions for people violating the ban on

crabs, one intervention for the closure of the wahoo species in

Cabo Rojo, two cases that included two divers, and that’s pretty

much the summary of the interventions. If you require the details,

I have the report that was provided by the Rangers with the exact

cases and the number of the cases and the places where they were

made, and so that’s pretty much the information that I have.

Some of the interventions that the Rangers are doing are being

posted in our mass media, including one recent case of illegal

fishing in Humacao, and so that’s pretty much the information.

MIGUEL ROLON: Thank you, Damaris. Can you send us an email with

an attachment, so we can put it in our records?

DAMARIS DELGADO: Sure. I will do that. I will send it to you.

MIGUEL ROLON: One clarification. Most of these interventions are

because they are in violation of Puerto Rico fishery laws and

regulations.

DAMARIS DELGADO: Right, and so that’s Law 278 and Regulation 7949.

Thank you very much.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Damaris. We will go now with the Coast

Guard.

U.S. COAST GUARD

JAMES BRUCE: Good morning, everybody. This is Lieutenant James

Bruce with the U.S. Coast Guard. Thank you very much for the

opportunity to speak, and I will be brief. It’s been a great two

days. Some of the presentations from everyone have been really

interesting, and I don’t have a presentation, especially after how

professional the other ones are. I wouldn’t dream of bringing one

to compete.

The only thing that I would submit is the U.S. Coast Guard is

continuing to work with our partners and agencies from Puerto Rico

and the area of USVI and state and federal partners, and we’re

continuing to conduct enforcement patrols to enforce federal

fisheries and federal regulations.

COVID has definitely been an interesting year, and it has presented

some operational challenges for us, to make sure that we are able

to protect the people that we interact with, as best as reasonable

and possible, and also protect our crews while still conducting

this mission.

Other than that, I don’t have a lot else to report. The U.S. Coast

Guard, I mean, we stand ready to support the communities that we’re

involved in, and we’ll also try and help level the playing field

in the commercial fisheries, and so I will stand by, if there’s

any questions, but that concludes my remarks. Thank you.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much. I skipped, accidentally, the

USVI report.

NICOLE ANGELI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This Nicole Angeli,

reporting for Enforcement for the Department of Planning and

Natural Resources. Our officers are currently pulled to the Virgin

Islands Police Department, in order to enforce and ensure the

health and safety of our citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic,

including enforcement for boating restrictions.

The fisheries enforcement has no update. However, we do have good

news, in that we have managed to hire two new candidates for the

USVI DPNR

police academy this year, and that concludes our report. If you

have more specific questions, please let me know in the chat or

email later.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much for your report. The next

report for enforcement is the NOAA Fisheries Office of Law

MIGUEL BORGES: I think Manny Antonaras was going to speak, but he

might be dealing with another thing, and so I could give a couple

of updates, at least since the last council meeting in September.

We have had several interdictions and trainings since then, and

specifically, training-wise, we provided training for the DNER

officers of the west coast of Puerto Rico. The training was

regarding case package requirements and federal regulations and

implementation of the closed areas on the west coast of Puerto

Rico.

We also had a meeting with the Secretary of DNER and the

commissioner of DNER to implement the strategies for future

collaborations coming up, and, for enforcement actions, we’ve had

several interdictions that have been in collaboration with DNER

officers that have resulted in enforcement action, and those have

been regarding highly migratory species, specifically billfish.

We also had an enforcement action concerning dolphin harassment on

the east coast of Puerto Rico, and that also resulted in

enforcement action for us, and we are also working, continue

working, with the Coast Guard and DNER for future operations.

We are also working four long-term investigations that are still

ongoing, and, lastly, we are focusing our enforcement efforts

toward port state measures and IUU fishing, and so that’s

unreported illegal fishing.

That’s done through seaport importation, through the ports, mainly

the San Juan port, and the same thing for the USVI, in St. Thomas,

for all the regulations to import seafood from other countries and

the programs they have to abide by, and so that’s in Puerto Rico

being done, and that concludes our report for this time. Thank

you.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Miguel. Thank you for your report. We

are going to Other Business now, and I believe we have a

presentation from Carlos Farchette on designating fishing safe

zones.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think Natalia has a

slide for me. Thanks. For years, fishermen have been complaining

about cargo vessels taking shortcuts over the shallow waters of

Lang Bank on their way to the port authority container port on the

south shore of St. Croix.

These container and cargo vessels, while underway, have traversed

through Lang Bank at water depths of forty to sixty feet, and,

while doing so, they have entangled fish trap lines, dragging them

and destroying many fish traps, causing economic hardship to the

fishers who have had to replace quite a bit of lost traps

throughout the years. Who knows what damage to the habitat these

traps have caused when being dragged by these ships down the road?

In the 1980s and 1990s, fishermen have taken shipping companies to

court, and a couple have been compensated by the company, when

fishers have identified their buoy colors. However, most of the

fishers do not have the financial backing to hire attorneys to

fight their case, compared to the legal defense that a

multimillion-dollar company can afford, and so, really, all the

fishers can do is complain to the DPNR.

This problem occurs predominantly on the south shore of St. Croix,

when ships are traveling from the southwest cape of Sandy Point to

the container port. In the past, there has been a notice to

mariners on the coast pilot for cargo and container vessels to

stay outside of the hundred-fathom curve while approaching the

container port. This notice was removed in 1995. However, I am

not sure why, and I couldn’t find the reason why it was removed.

I am aware that the area of the south shore is in territorial

waters, because the hundred-fathom curve falls within state

waters, but I believe it’s an important issue that not only occurs

in Lang Bank. However, being the council, and we only regulate

federal waters, that’s why I am specifically speaking to the area

that you see on the screen.

When it comes to the south shore of St. Croix, the fishermen met

in October with the Governor of the Virgin Islands, and he said

that he would be consulting with the port authority to discuss

what can be done about designating a safe fishing zone on the south

shore of St. Croix.

These incidents also create a safety-at-sea issue, particularly at

night when fishers are line fishing and while at anchor, and they

have had to cut their anchor line to escape being run over by these

large vessels. This safety-at-sea issue also occurs at Lang Bank,

and I believe that some type of protection should be afforded to

the fishermen who use this area to make their livelihood.

Speaking to one of our DAP members, Dave Gubser, which is also a

member of our FAC, he brought up what happened in San Francisco

Bay while he was a tugboat operator, and they had designated

shipping lanes to avoid this problem.

All that being said, I would like to get some advice from the

council, maybe from Jocelyn or maybe the U.S. Coast Guard, on how

we can designate the area of Lang Bank seen on the slide as a safe

fishing zone by maintaining vessels outside of the hundred-fathom

curve while navigating around Lang Bank, St. Croix. Some of these

vessels are either out of Puerto Rico or somewhere in the U.S., or

even down island. I believe a rule of law could be what the

fishers are asking for, because placing a notice to mariners in

the coast pilot as a courtesy, as it once was, is not good enough,

and it’s usually ignored.

If there is a way to have language, such as a vessel measuring X,

or weighing X metric tons, must, or shall, keep within X, Y, Z

lines, as necessary language. If this request for assistance by

the council is beyond its jurisdiction, I would like someone to

maybe point me in the direction that I can follow through with it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Carlos. Your request for input, if it’s

possible, from the Coast Guard and from Jocelyn, and let’s start

with the Coast Guard, if there is any input or any way that you

can help here.

JAMES BRUCE: This, in particular, is not my area of expertise.

What I did is put my email address in the comments. If you would

be so kind to just give a quick recap, and, if you want to send me

the issue at-hand, I can absolutely get you to the right office

that would be able to speak to this with more authority and

precision, and so I hesitate to comment too much on it, because,

again, it’s not my particular area of expertise.

However, the process of these types of designations is something

that the Coast Guard does participate in, along with several other

federal agencies, and so I will pause right there and just make

sure that that got through, because I know we’re on a virtual

meeting.

CARLOS FARCHETTE: Thank you. Tonight, we have a fisheries

advisory committee meeting, and I will bring up this point that

you just brought up, and we’ll send you an email. We have a member

named Toby Tobias, or William Tobias, that has a long history with

what’s been going on out there, and so he can assist me in writing

this request to you.

JAMES BRUCE: It doesn’t have to be anything very official. What

I’m more speaking to is just to get you on the right path and get

you connected with the right people, and so I just want to make

sure that I’m communicating that clearly.

MIGUEL ROLON: Carlos, probably you should do two things. You

should follow the Coast Guard’s suggestion, and that’s just to get

the names of the person that you should address this request, and

then put together a request, because I worked with this before in

San Juan, for another reason, and, in the request, usually what

they want is the why, where, the rationale, et cetera, and then

they point to the other agencies, because this has to be done by

the action agency, and you have to include a lot of considerations

for this. I guess that this is the best way to start.

Then the National Marine Fisheries Service intervenes with

comments, regarding whether any of these actions have any effects

on the fishery management plan and so forth, and so we should send

a copy to Jocelyn, just to make sure that they are abreast of these

developments.

Okay. Will do.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Carlos. I think that satisfies what

your intention is so far, and you’re done?

CARLOS

Yes, it does, to start.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you. The next is I think we have Under

Other Business, that’s it, correct, Miguel?

MIGUEL ROLON: We have the public comment period, and I believe

that Dr. Michelle Scharer wanted to address the group.

MARCOS HANKE: Yes. We are going now to the public comment period.

Michelle.

TONY BLANCHARD: Marcos, I would like to make a comment on the

public comment, when she is finished.

MARCOS HANKE: That’s correct. Thank you. No problem.

MICHELLE SCHARER: Hi, everyone. Thanks again for the opportunity.

I believe there is a short presentation that I sent to Liajay and

Graciela.

LIAJAY RIVERA: Yes, you did. Hold on just a second, because your

PowerPoint just froze, and so give me a second to reopen it.

MICHELLE SCHARER: Basically, I just wanted to reiterate what

various scientists shared this morning, that we need data from our

local area to be able to adjust our management of our fisheries,

since a lot of the information wasn’t available previously, for

example these age validations and differences in the behavior of

species due to our environmental patterns in the Caribbean being

different from the U.S.

Basically, I wanted to bring to light something that I have shared

previously with different agencies and persons regarding the

variability in the formation of the spawning aggregations we have

locally, and so this is preliminary data from our passive acoustic

monitoring of red hind off the west coast of Puerto Rico.

Red hind off of western Puerto Rico are known to aggregate to spawn

during one to three lunar cycles after the full moon of the winter

solstice, and so, right now, today, December 9, the fish are

starting to migrate to their aggregation, but, this year, the full

moon is the 29th of December, and so it’s not until after that that

we will actually see the aggregations.

We also know, from work done here and in the U.S. Virgin Islands,

that the males and the larger females, which will be next year’s

males, because remember that they change sex as they get bigger,

they remain until the end of each aggregation every year, and this

is important to understand how the behavior is affecting the

aggregations.

We also know that one of the cues for spawning is the water

temperature. It needs to drop below 26.5 degrees Centigrade for

them to actually have that cue to spawn. During the reproductive

behaviors, red hinds produce sounds that we can detect remotely by

passive acoustic monitoring, and we’ve been doing that since 2007

at Abrir la Sierra.

If the aggregation extends past February 28 in the EEZ of western

Puerto Rico, the reproduction is disrupted, and, because of their

behavior, the larger males and females will be more vulnerable to

This happened three times in the past ten years that we’ve been

monitoring. If you go to the next slide, I can show you an example

of what this data actually look like, and so the orange bars are

the acoustic signals that are produced by the red hind when they

are aggregated.

On the top, you will see the full moons of that season, and you

will also see dotted blue is the minimum water temperature at depth

at this aggregation site, and so, basically, that first peak in

sound production coincides with that first dip in water temperature

below 26.5 degrees, and then we see another peak in sound

production that also comes after another dip in temperature, and

that red-dotted line is February 28. We have been able to

document, three times in the past ten years, that the aggregation

continues past February 28.

We can see that the aggregation is well protected during the first

two cycles, but it’s not always protected when the full moon is

late and the temperatures don’t peak down into the colder areas

that they need to spawn.

Why is this important? Preliminarily, we’ve been collecting red

hind from commercial fishers in different parts of the island, and

this is a project in conjunction with Rick Nemeth and Virginia

Shervette funded by MARFIN. When we look at the sex ratios, or

the proportion of males to females, off of western Puerto Rico,

throughout the fishing areas, we see about an eighty-to-twenty

ratio.

On the east of Puerto Rico, it’s a little more males to females,

but, during the aggregation site that we have been monitoring off

of western Puerto Rico, we had a scarcity of males, and I don’t

need to explain much how you need sperm to fertilize all of these

eggs, but this is something that is concerning for the productivity

of the red hind fishery off of western Puerto Rico.

The variability in the lunar cycle, and so this is when the fish

actually aggregate, compared to the regulations that end on

February 28, based on preliminary data, we could see this happen

up to eight times in the next ten years, but it’s not sure how

climate change and seawater temperatures will affect these

patterns.

The suggestion is to go to the CFR Sub-Part S, Section 622.435,

and revise the end date of the red hind closed season, if the

rationale is to protect the aggregations. The future aggregations

would be better protected by a more in-depth analysis of our

passive acoustic monitoring data, a continued active passive

acoustic monitoring, and year-round seawater temperature

recordings at different aggregation sites, so that we can address

how widespread this problem may be.

Variability in the formation of the spawning aggregations has also

been noted for other species that aggregate to spawn in the U.S.

Caribbean, and we have the data available for the groupers that

produce sound.

Finally, next year, on February 28, we expect the fish to still be

aggregated after the closure of the red hind season, and we suggest

that the council consider an emergency rule so that this

aggregation is not disrupted in the near future, and that’s it.

Thank you very much.

MARCOS HANKE: Any questions from the council? I think it’s very

important information, and it’s relevant to all the regions of the

U.S. Caribbean, and are there any comments or any questions?

MIGUEL ROLON: Marcos, I believe that what Dr. Scharer presented

today is new information, or let’s say presented in a different

context, and I believe that Graciela and I can take a look at this,

and, in 2021, start consulting with the Regional Office and the

people to see how to incorporate any of this into the decision-

making process that we have.

Regarding emergency action, in the federal government, emergency

action is when a plane crashes, and that’s what I was told in

Washington at a meeting when we requested an emergency action,

meaning that probably we won’t have time to have an emergency

action by February 28, 2021, because emergency action has to go by

the action agency, in this case National Marine Fisheries Service.

The important part here, Mr. Chairman, is to take this information

and keep consulting with Dr. Scharer, and Dr. Scharer is a member

of the SSC, and we should take this information to continue the

process that we have.

By the way, Dr. Scharer is also helping us on the international

level with the protection of spawning aggregations of species that

use this strategy in their life history for those species, and so

it is important that we consider this information and add any

actions in 2021 and 2022 for the protection of these species.

Just remember that any action that we have has to be in

consideration with the socioeconomics of the area, and so all of

that will be in play by the time that we put something together to

address this issue.

MARCOS HANKE: I understand that, and I just would like to give

the opportunity to the council members to express themselves, and

I have a question on the slide.

MIGUEL ROLON: Marcos, go ahead and ask you question, and maybe

that will entice some discussion, because it’s 12:00 already.

MARCOS HANKE: Okay. For me, it’s very interesting, because, on

the east coast of Puerto Rico, it’s different than the west coast,

the fishing grounds and the way that people behave, in terms of

fishing, and the commercial fishermen on the east coast don’t

target specifically red hind, like other areas of Puerto Rico,

and, more than that, there is not a specific area that is protected

or is identified to go for the red hind like the west coast. Maybe

that is the reason why we have that ratio that’s different than

the west, and that’s a possibility, Michelle? Am I reading this

right? Can you make a comment on that?

MICHELLE SCHARER: Absolutely. I think that is part of the reason,

I think, that there is this different sex ratio, but, also, the

fishing methods used in the east versus the west, from which these

samples were collected, is also different, and so most of the east

coast red hind came from traps, and most of the west coast came

from spearfishing, and so that may also be a reason why there is

this difference, but the most concerning one is what’s happening

at

site.

VANESSA RAMIREZ: Just to make a small comment, it’s also, as you

say, that in the west that we have a lot of the We have 300

divers, and this species is really well known in the area, and

many people look for them, and so all the fish markets pay

practically $3.00 or $3.50 per pound, and divers are looking for

it, also. Thanks.

MARCOS HANKE: Okay. As the Chairman, I would really like to have

a discussion on this in the future and to explore which way we can

address and learn about this new information, like Miguel said,

and we’re going to get this information and see what can be done

or which way we can accommodate a deeper discussion of this issue.

Thank you very much for your presentation, Michelle.

EDWARD SCHUSTER: I had a question, Marcos. My hand was up in the

chat.

MARCOS HANKE: Go ahead. I’m sorry, Ed. Go ahead.

EDWARD SCHUSTER: Okay. Excellent information. This is why it’s

so important to go into these closed areas for reevaluation. Now

that this study has been done, are you saying that the larger fish

remain even after the closures there, and so, with the emergency

closure that you’re proposing, you’re saying that you want to

extend the closed area longer?

MARCOS HANKE: Michelle.

MICHELLE SCHARER: Part of the recommendation we have made

previously, for the west coast of Puerto Rico, in the EEZ, was to

shift, and not extend, the closed season, to be able to protect

that last peak in the aggregation, and so, instead of 1 December

to 28 February, we have proposed, in the past, 15 December to 15

March.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Michelle.

EDWARD SCHUSTER: Okay. It makes sense now. You’re not extending

it, but you’re just moving the peak time of the closed areas,

because now you know exactly when the bigger fish are there and

they’re doing their stuff.

MARCOS HANKE: Michelle.

MICHELLE

EDWARD

Okay. Thank you. Excellent information and

MIGUEL ROLON: Marcos, we have Richard and Vanessa.

MARCOS HANKE: Richard.

RICHARD APPELDOORN: I just wanted to reemphasize why this is

really an issue now, and it’s because, of course, that the lunar

cycles do not follow the solar calendar, and, while our initial

decade of monitoring showed this problem to occur periodically,

that’s just how the moon happened to fall during that decade of

work, and the decade coming up is going to be one where this is

going to be a problem. As she said, it will occur 80 percent of

the time, and so it’s really trying to point out that this is

something that we need to address, and address soon, because it’s

going to be with us for a while.

The only other solution would be to change to the Mayan lunar 1 calendar, and that would solve all of our problems, because 2 everything would be aligned, but, then again, the world would have

ended in 2012, and so there’s a downside. Thank you.

MARCOS HANKE: Vanessa.

VANESSA RAMIREZ: Marcos, thank you. I just wanted to tell

Michelle that I totally agree with The calendar is by the lunar

cycle, and so this not only the red hind species, but there is

also another species that are doing the same for the last three

years, and so we need to work on this, and for the health of the

fisheries, and to instruct the fishermen also of the importance to

maintain that calendar update. Thanks.

MARCOS HANKE: Graciela.

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: I just have one question regarding

enforcement, and so the seasonal closure for red hind extends from

the shoreline to the 200 nautical miles. Do we have any

information on the success of enforcement during that time of the

year that we have now and how that might have contributed to the

changes that we see in the population? The question probably will

bounce back to the enforcement officers and to the commercial

fishers.

MARCOS HANKE: Your question is directed to whom?

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: Well, if Michelle has the answer, it

would be great, but, if not, to the enforcement agents and to the

local government, and to the commercial fishers.

MARCOS HANKE: Michelle.

MICHELLE SCHARER: I don’t have any information on actual

interventions, but, when we’ve been sampling during the closed

season, we have seen boats actively fishing for red hind at the

aggregation site.

MARCOS HANKE: Anybody else have information about enforcement on

this issue?

DAMARIS DELGADO: I know Yamitza Rodriguez is on the line, if she

can share some information, because I know she monitors the

interventions. Right now, I don’t have that type of information

here, and I would ask my fellow colleagues within DNER after the

meeting, and I can provide information later on.

MIGUEL ROLON: Marcos, the important part is not the enforcement

at this time, and it’s just the presentation that Dr. Scharer is

bringing to the attention of the group, which is that new

information regarding the size and also a request for changing the

range of the closure that we have here, to make sure that we cover

the peak spawning time for the species.

MARCOS HANKE: Yes, Miguel, and I would like to ask I see

interest from Vanessa and from Eddie and from a few of the council

members, recognizing this important information, and which is the

The question is to Jocelyn, but which is the best way we can

address this as quick as possible, the discussion? Thank you,

Jocelyn.

JOCELYN D’AMBROSIO: Thank you, Marcos. One of the things that I

just wanted to circle back to that Graciela had said was just about

the scope of the closure, and so the federal regulations We’re

talking about closed areas in federal waters in particular time

periods, and I can’t speak to any of the closures in the

territorial waters, but we have, on the books, some closed areas

and closed seasons to account for red hind spawning.

Then I think the question is do we need to adjust those time

periods to account for different information, and so we can look

into the process for doing that and putting forward an amendment

to revise some of the closed seasons, or the closed areas, to

account for that information, and so that’s something that the

council could request staff to look into.

In terms of an emergency rule, I would have to do some additional

looking at the scope of that, but I think Miguel mentioned that

there are very narrow circumstances where we could have an

emergency, and so it doesn’t initially seem like that would be

appropriate, but we might It would be appropriate to reevaluate

the management measures on the books, to make sure that they’re

matching the best scientific information that we have.

MARCOS HANKE: I guess that’s the best route, and we need guidance

from you guys to make sure we follow the science. Yamitza

Rodriguez is

YAMITZA RODRIGUEZ: Yes. Hi. Regarding what Damaris mentioned,

we can provide information regarding the interventions that the

Rangers have done. With red hind, what we do is, most of the time

that they intervene on the water, the Rangers come to the Fisheries

Lab, and we do the certification and measurements that are required

of the fish, for the law purposes or anything, and we have all

that information, I think since 2005 to 2019, and it is mostly up-

to-date. We can give you information regarding how many

interventions of red hind have been done during the seasonal

closure.

One thing to keep in mind is that most of the interventions that

we receive are from the west coast, and, since 2010, when the

fishing regulations were amended, the seasonal closure applies

island-wide, and so we can try to collect if there are other

interventions of red hind in the seasonal closure for other parts

of the island, and we can provide how many interventions that the

Rangers have done in this period.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you. Once you have that document, can you

please send it to the council, for us to have it and to distribute?

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much, Yamitza. We have Graciela.

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: Yes, please. Michelle, if it’s Abrir la

Sierra only, that’s completely within federal waters, and so that’s

one thing, and so would you suggest to begin with something like

that, or would it be better to look at the complete seasonal

closure, so that the government of Puerto Rico and the federal

government moved from December 1 to December 15 to March 15 the

seasonal closure for everywhere?

MIGUEL ROLON: Marcos, if I may, we are not going to solve this

here, and so now you have received a proposal from Dr. Scharer,

and so I suggest that we allow the staff to meet with SERO and

Jocelyn and the local government and Dr. Michelle Scharer and then

come to you with something that could be worked with.

MARCOS HANKE: I think that would be more productive. Thank you,

Miguel. We can do that, and just the last question that Graciela

asked to Michelle, and then we will close the discussion.

MICHELLE SCHARER: It’s very simple. We have monitoring stations

in other sites that are in federal waters, and we’re seeing the

same pattern. We do not have localized red hind sites in Puerto

Rico jurisdictional waters yet that we can monitor and see if the

same thing is happening there.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Michelle. Is there anybody else for

public comment?

MIGUEL ROLON: You have Tony waiting.

MARCOS HANKE: I am sorry, Tony. Go ahead.

TONY BLANCHARD: I would just like to touch base on something that

really kind of bothered me today about this meeting, and it was

almost like we were trying to rush through an agenda, and I think

not a lot of time for questions, and trying to keep up with a time

period, to keep the meeting within, and I could understand that,

to a certain degree, but it’s almost like we were running a race,

and I’m pretty sure there are other members out there that shared

the same thoughts that I share.

Something that has nothing to do with this is Mr. Magras was trying

to log onto the meeting, and I don’t know how he got kicked off,

and he told me that he could not get back on the meeting, for

whatever the reason was, but he was trying to log on, and he just

couldn’t get back on, and so I just had to bring that to your

attention. I don’t know if we were running short on time or we

had too much of a loaded agenda to deal with for the timeframe,

but I think we need to do a better job the next time.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you for your input, Tony. I agree with you

that it was a tight agenda, and I share your opinion, and we’re

going to keep working to make the meetings the best we can, with

the best information we can. Thank you very much for your input.

If we don’t have anybody else, we are ready to adjourn the meeting.

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: One moment, Mr. Chair. We do have the

SEDAR 80, queen triggerfish, appointments, and so we have

requested, from the local governments, their input, in terms of

the appointees, people who are experts on queen trigger and

commercial or recreational fishers, and so we are expecting their

prompt response, and we have already confirmed the participation

of Virginia and Jesus for the SEDAR 80 and collaboration with the

Science Center and the SEDAR group to provide us with a successful

assessment, and so thank you. You will be appointing the CFMC

appointees very soon.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you, Graciela. I am not missing anything

else?

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: No, and I think that Miguel has just

dropped the signal, and so I don’t know he’s on.

MARCOS HANKE: Go ahead, John.

JOHN WALTER: One thing is I just want to commend the science that

we’ve seen today, and it’s been fascinating, and I really think

that a lot of great work is going on. One thing that might be

useful is, if this science has not gone through the SSC, to bring

it to the SSC, because that’s where there is time for some more

evaluation of it, from the scientific perspective, and I think

that could help the council then get that science distilled into

some concrete management actions, and it seems like that process

might be an effective way to make sure that the science gets to

become actionable on a management level. Thanks.

MARCOS HANKE: Great input. Thank you very much, and we are going

to I am going to work directly with the chairman of the SSC to

make sure this information can be presented or arranged to inform

the SSC. Thank you very much. I don’t think we have anything

else, anybody else on the list. Thank you for your patience, and

thank you for participating. Miguel.

MIGUEL ROLON: I just want to thank everybody, and, actually, I am

taking note of Tony’s concern, and certainly some people have

problems in and out of the meeting, and so they have to Because

of problems in their section, of where they are, and so we are

constantly admitting people to the meeting, and they send me the

reason why they are in and out of the meeting.

The last thing that I was going to say is this is our last meeting

of the year, and hopefully we will not have another year like this

one, unless we have COVID 2020 next year, but I want to thank

everybody for their participation and patience during all this

interesting time, all the council members and all the chairs of

our committees and all the panels that we have.

I want to mention the ladies who work with us through the year,

and, thanks to them, the council has been able to continue working

during all this time, and I just wanted to mention, for the record,

in the order that they sit at the council office: Angie, Graciela,

Luz, Natalia, Iris, Diana, Liajay, and Christina.

These ladies have done more than they were supposed to do in their

position descriptions, and they are always willing and able to

help us, and so, like this meeting, for example, we have the

teamwork with Liajay and Natalia and Graciela and everybody

involved. For that, we are very grateful, and I wish you all happy

holidays and a better 2021. I will see you guys in 2021. Thank

you, Mr. Chairman.

GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: Mr. Chairman, you have Manny who wants

to make an announcement.

MANNY ANTONARAS: Thank you, Marcos. I wanted to share with the

council that our office selected the new enforcement officer.

During the last meeting, I had briefed that we were working through

the hiring process, and so we have selected an officer for the

USVI, Mr. Alex Terrero, and he’s currently at the Federal Law

Enforcement Training Center and completing his basic training.

Alex comes to us with a great deal of experience, and he’s got

thirteen years working with the Florida Fish and Wildlife

Conservation Commission, and we’re very happy to have him onboard.

I hope that, maybe during the next meeting, we could do an

introduction and have him speak with the council.

Then the other thing I wanted to share was Matt Walia was selected

as OLE’s new Compliance and Council Liaison, and so Matt will be

working directly with industry and the councils to address any

concerns that may come up. Matt is on He’s participating on

this call as well, and, Matt, I’m not sure if you want to Is

there anything you want to share to the group?

MATT WALIA: I would just introduce myself, and so I’m here and

available to help as needed, and so, if there are any law

enforcement concerns, and we talked about some of the red hind and

the EEZ closure areas, and please direct them my way, or Manny’s

way, and we’ll do what we can to help address that. Those were

great presentations by the outreach liaisons, and I plan on

reaching contact with you guys as well, and I look forward to, in

the future, where we can work with you on a more island-to-island

level, and so that’s all, and I look forward to working with you

guys.

MARCOS HANKE: Thank you very much, and thank you to all. Merry

Christmas and Happy New Year. I hope that everybody stays safe

and healthy, and thank you for your support, and now we are ready

to adjourn the meeting. Thank you very much.

(Whereupon, the meeting adjourned on December 9, 2020.)

Habitat Classification in Puerto Rico’s Deep

• Two year project: Fall 2018-Fall 2020

Objectives

• Development of low cost, deepwater camera and LED light system

• Deployable from center console tethered to commercial fishing gear on vessels in NW, SE, and NE of Puerto Rico

• Operating in 100-500 m depth range

• Describe habitat utilization of queen snapper using video data and hook and line fishing

• Length, weight, and biological samples for age and growth and reproductive studies on queen snapper and other target species

Deepwater Camera System

Overview of Field Survey

• Drop camera and hook and line deployed by commercial fishermen at each station

• Total of 471 stations over 2 years

• GoPro’s video analyzed for the following:

• Habitat classification

• Fish and deepwater coral species identification

• Minimum counts; Presence/absence

• Percentage of bottom covered by specific biotic and abiotic organisms and features

• Estimate factors affecting queen snapper distributions and abundance

• Species richness and diversity index

• Patterns in the observed fish community

Catch Data

• Fish ID, fork length, total length, weight, sex

• Biological samples taken:

• otoliths and gonads

• Age and growth studies conducted on:

• Queen snapper (Etelis oculatus)

• Blackfin snapper (Lutjanus buccanella)

• Black snapper ( Apsilius dentatus)

• Co-registered with multibeam bathymetry data, video data (habitat), and depth

Preliminary Findings – Southeast Deep Coral Initiative

• Fish Species (Video): 77

• Fish Species (Hook and Line): 22

• Invertebrate Species (Sessile and Mobile): 100+

A comprehensive US Caribbean FisheryIndependent Survey utilizing stereo video and hook and line methods to assess the deep water snapper-grouper complex in Puerto Rico. Project 2:

Kate Overly 1 , Andy David 2 , Ryan Caillouet 3 , Steve Smith 4

1Riverside Technology Inc., in support of NOAA Fisheries Service, Panama City Laboratory, Panama City, FL

2NOAA Fisheries Service, Panama City Laboratory, Panama City, FL

3NOAA-NMFS-SEFSC-Mississippi Laboratories, Pascagoula, MS

4NOAA-NMFS-SEFSC-Miami Laboratory, Miami, FL

Overview

• Projected start date for field work: January 2021

• Deepwater S-BRUV

• 100-650 m

• Deployed and retrieved on deep-drop fishing gear

• Records imagery of benthic habitats and fish assemblages

• Addition of optical imagery in the form of paired, deep water stereo video cameras which will allow for the collection of non-destructive and size composition data

• Fishing lines will be deployed to collect biological samples upon retrieval of the video system at each sampling location

• Bait preference

Expected Outcomes: December 2020

• Development of the necessary steps required to collect appropriate data to assess species in the deep water snapper-grouper complex in the US Caribbean.

• Development of a deep water stereo video system combined with wavelength-modified LED lights will provide a non-destructive method of measuring fish length for fish species which avoid visible light and/or are difficult to catch by hook and line methods.

• The survey itself will provide unbiased, geo-referenced estimates of relative abundance, and sizes of exploited and unexploited fishes for the west coast of Puerto Rico.

• Provides technology that will be directly transferable to other SEFSC regions, where it can be reproduced at low cost to gather data on distribution, abundance, and length composition for species of interest.

Project 3:

Age and Growth of oculatus)

Objectives

• Aging archived and contemporary otoliths from US Caribbean and US Gulf of Mexico

• 300 US GOM

• 1991-2019

• 800+ US Caribbean

• 2005-2006, 2012, 2015-2020

• Validating the accuracy of age estimation via application of the bomb radiocarbon chronometer using both otolith and eye lens cores

• Drawing inference about likely juvenile habitat through comparison of otolith core

values

Expected Outcomes: May 2021

• Age, growth, and mortality parameters are the essential first steps to being able to compute a quantitative assessment on queen snapper in the US Caribbean.

• This project will provide critical information on queen snapper life history including:

• Validated age composition estimates

• Size distributions for US Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico

• Extending longevity estimates for queen snapper

• Previous maximum age of 8 y/o

• Youngest: 5 y/o, FL 178 mm

• Oldest: 45+ y/o, FL 708 mm

• Computed growth functions

• Estimates of natural mortality

Notruemanagementtarget;goal=avoidoverfishing(i.e.,landings <OFL) OverfishingavoidedviabuffersbetweenOFLandABCand betweenACLandACT

Result:realizedFoften<FOY forCaribbeanreeffishes

• Rocketscience

• Sagittalotolithsections,count opaquezones

• Temperateversustropical

• ManyU.S.Caribbeanspecies inaccuratelyagedinpaststudies orhavedifferentpopulationage structurethanreportedfor SEUS

“Takesameticulouseffort andlargeamountofwork toensurethatagedataare accurateforourU.S. Caribbeanfishspecies!”

ValidationofAgeEstimationvia

Δ14CChronometer

Bombradiocarbonisausefultoolappliedtothe validationofageestimatesinfishes 14Cwasintroducedintotheatmosphere-nuclearbomb testing1950suntil1970

14CdissolvedintooceanCO2 andincorporatedinto aragonite(biogenicCaCO3)skeletonsofhermatypic corals,carbonate-basedshellsofmollusks,andthe aragonitestructuresoffishes

Thetime-specificΔ14Caragoniterecordsprovideregional referencechronologiesusedtoevaluatefishage estimatesthroughcomparisonoffishΔ14Cmeasuredin otolithcoreoreyelenscorematerialthatformedduring earlylife

Werecentlydevelopedaregion-specificnorthern

CaribbeanΔ14Cchronometerforreeffishagevalidation work

(A)Growthf nctionfittoobservedsizeatagedataforo rU.S.Caribbeanblackfinsnapper samples.(B)vonBertalanffygrowthc rvesforo rU.S.Caribbeansamplescomparedtothe growthc rvefromB rtonetal.(2016)forFL-Caribbeanblackfinsamples.

Maximumage=45y

Caught2016 southofSt.Thomas

FL405mm

Maximumagefromcurrentstudy=20y

SimilarmaximumagereportedfromFlorida=23y(McBrideandRichardson2007)

Acknowledgements

MarcosHanke

NickyMartinez

CarlosVelazquez

BobbyThomas

OmarHughes

PRDNER

VIDPNRDWF

RickNemeth,UVI

BeverlyBarnett,NOAA

KayleyKirkland,USCA

TheNatureConservancy,St.Croix

Southeast Regional Office

Proposed Critical Habitat for 5 Caribbean Corals

Stepwise Approach

Thecurrentrangeofthespeciesandnot everydiscretelocationonwhichindividuals ofthespeciesphysicallyarelocated.

physicalorbiologicalfeaturesessentialto thespecies'conservationthatmayrequire specialmanagement considerationsor protection.

Geographic Areas Occupied

Physical and Biological Features

Reproductive, recruitment, growth, and maturation habitat. Sites that support the normal function of all life stages of the corals are natural, consolidated hard substrate or dead coral skeleton free of algae and sediment at the appropriate scale at the point of larval settlement or fragment reattachment, and the associated water column. Several attributes of these sites determine the quality of the area and influence the value of the associated feature to the conservation of the species:

(1) Substrate with presence of crevices and holes that provide cryptic habitat, the presence of microbial biofilms, or presence of crustose coralline algae;

(2) Reefscape (all the visible features of an area of reef) with no more than a thin veneer of sediment and low occupancy by fleshy and turf macroalgae;

(3) Marine water with levels of temperature, aragonite saturation, nutrients, and water clarity that have been observed to support any demographic function; and

(4) Marine water with levels of anthropogenically-introduced (from humans) chemical contaminants that do not preclude or inhibit any demographic function.

Specific Areas

Latin Name Common Name Depth Distribution U.S. Geographic Distribution

Dendrogyra cylindrus Pillar coral 1 to 25 m

Orbicella annularis

Lobed star coral 0.5 to 20 m

Southeast Florida from Lake Worth Inlet in Palm Beach County to the Dry Tortugas; Puerto Rico; USVI; Navassa Island

Southeast Florida from Lake Worth Inlet in Palm Beach County to the Dry Tortugas; FGB; Puerto Rico; USVI; Navassa Island

Orbicella faveolata

Mountainous star coral 0.5 to 90 m

Orbicella franksi

Boulder star coral 5 to 90 m

Southeast Florida from St. Lucie Inlet in Martin County to the Dry Tortugas; FGB; Puerto Rico; USVI; Navassa Island

Southeast Florida from Lake Worth Inlet in Palm Beach County to the Dry Tortugas; FGB; Puerto Rico; USVI; Navassa Island

Mycetophyllia ferox

Rough cactus coral 5 to 90 m

Southeast Florida from Broward County to the Dry Tortugas; Puerto Rico; USVI; Navassa Island

Maximum Extent - Florida

Maximum Extent - Puerto Rico

Maximum Extent - St Thomas/St John

Maximum Extent - St Croix

Maximum Extent - Navassa Island

Maximum Extent - Flower Garden Banks

Proposed CH vs. Acropora CH

What’s Not Critical Habitat?

Essential Feature not present Naval Air Station Key West

Managed Areas (e.g., dredged navigation channels, shipping basins, vessel berths, and active anchorages)

Artificial Substrates (e.g., AToNs, seawalls, wharves, boat ramps, fishpond walls, pipes, submarine cables, wrecks, mooring balls, docks, and aquaculture cages.

South Florida Ocean Measuring Facility

Activities that May Affect the

Proposed CH

Coastal and in-water construction

Channel dredging

Beach nourishment/shoreline protection

Water quality management

Protected area management

Fishery management

Aquaculture

Military activities

•RedHindoffwestPuertoRicoaggregatetospawnduring1-3lunarcyclesafterthefullmoon post-wintersolstice(Dec.21)

•Males&largerfemales(nextyear’smales)remainuntiltheendofeachaggregation •Watertemperaturedrops,below26.5°C(79.7F)havebeendocumentedasacueto spawning

•DuringreproductivebehaviorsRedHindproducesoundsthataredetectedremotelyby passiveacousticmonitoring(PAM)

•IftheaggregationextendspastFebruary28intheEEZoffwesternPuertoRicoreproduction isdisrupted,largermalesandfemalesaremorevulnerabletofishing

•ThelunarcyclesofRedHindaggregationsextendedpastFeb.28atALSin2013,2015& 2019(30%ofpastdecade)

•Thevariabilityinlunarcycle&aggregationspastFeb.28,couldhappenupto8timesinthe nextdecade(80%),butclimatechangemayaffectthisinwayswecannotfullypredict

•PrepareanamendmenttothedatesoftheRedHindclosedseasonoffwestPRbasedonthe mostrecentscientificinformationavailablefromtheregion

•Thefutureaggregationscouldbebetterpredictedbyamorein-depthanalysisofPAM, continuedpassiveacousticmonitoringandyear-roundseawatertemperaturerecordingsat aggregationsites.

•Thisvariabilityinthespawningaggregationtiminghasbeennotedforotherspeciesthat aggregatetospawnintheUSCaribbeanforwhichdataisavailablefromtheregion

•EmergencyrulejustifiedduetothedisruptionoftheRedHindaggregationwhentheclosed seasonendsonFeb.28,2021

CFMC Social Media

Cristina D. Olán Martínez

Facebook and Instagram

• We continue publishing information about:

• Seasonal closures

• Announcements of webinar offered by other agencies or organizations

• NOAA Bulletins

• CFMC Meetings

• Species (Slide Shows)

• Topics related to Essential Fish Habitats

• DNER Administrative Orders during pandemic

• DPNR communications

• AmandOceano FB Lives (fish id and lionfish)

• Thanks to all the persons that always contribute sharing information, reviewing posts, sharing our content: CFMC staff, fishers, scientists, agencies, stakeholders.

CARICOOS WORKSHOPS

• Boating App Workshops were offered on Tuesday, September 24, 2020 (Spanish) and Tuesday, October 6, 2020 (English) through ZOOM and broadcasted thorugh CFMC Facebook page.

• Workshops were a collaborative effort among CARICOOS, PR Sea Grant, and the CFMC.

YouTube Channel

• New in YouTube

• Recordings of DAP Meetings and Regular Meetings

• Video on Ocean Acidification funded by the NOAA’s Ocean Acidification Program

• Recording of the Responsible Seafood Consumption Webinar sponsored by PR Tourism Company (Dr. Álida Ortiz and Marcos Hanke were the presenters)

What’s new?

• CFMC Monthly Bulletin – Bulletin includes information regarding CFMC Meetings, underutilized species, fishers, sustainability, information in our social media platforms. It is available through Facebook, CFMC webpage, and email.

Cambios en la actividad pesquera comercial de Puerto Rico a raíz de la pandemia de COVID-19

Presentación de estudiantes UPR- Humacao, Biol-4626

Eva M. Collazo-Montañez, Kiara M. Torres-Figueroa, Gabriela S. Hernández Ramírez y

Paola Sotomayor

CFMC - 8 de diciembre de 2020

Introducción

• OBJETIVO: Conocer los impactos y medir los cambios causados por la pandemia del COVID-19 y la Orden Ejecutiva OE-2020-023 (y subsiguientes) en la actividad pesquera de Puerto Rico

• Pregunta: ¿Hubo cambios y de qué magnitud en la actividad pesquera a raíz de la pandemia?

• Participaron miembros de la industria pesquera de las organizaciones:

• Congreso de pescadores de Puerto Rico, Inc.

• Federación de Pescadores y Defensores del Mar, Inc. (FEPDEMAR)

Secuencia de eventos

• La Orden Ejecutiva 2020-023 (y subsiguientes) establecieron toques de queda durante los cuales estaba prohibido salir a pescar con la misma libertad de costumbre. Ejemplo: Toques de queda de 7:00 pm a 5:00 am.

• Mucha confusión al comienzo de la implementación del toque de queda. Luego quedó claro que los pescadores comerciales podían salir a pescar por ser parte de la cadena alimenticia de la isla. Ejemplo: Cantidad de proeles o asistentes.

• Las estructuras de mercadeo y venta de pescado se vieron afectadas.

• Surgió el interés de parte de la industria pesquera en documentar los impactos económicos.

Métodos

• Se implementó un cuestionario de 24 preguntas en Google Forms

• Estuvo disponible del 27 de junio al 18 de julio de 2020 (22 días)

• La participación de pescadores de PR fue anónima y voluntaria

• Todos los participantes pertenecen a una de las dos agrupaciones:

Congreso de pescadores de Puerto Rico, Inc. y FEPDEMAR, Inc.

Resultados

• Respuestas corresponden al periodo de 4 meses:

15 de marzo al 18 de julio del 2020

• Participaron 80 miembros del Congreso y FEPDEMAR de los cuales 78 aceptaron el consentimiento informado

• Los participantes pertenecen a 16 pueblos costeros

Grupo encuestado

• De los 78 participantes 83.3% tienen licencia comercial a tiempo parcial o completo (6 con certificación bonafide del Dept. de Agricultura), 10.3% licencia comercial principiante y 6.4% no tenían licencia vigente.

• Las artes de pesca más mencionadas fueron:

• La cala

• El cordel/caña o carrete

• Las nasas

Esfuerzo de Pesca

• 74% dejaron de pescar durante el periodo encuestado (58/78)

• 26% continuaron pescando (20/78)

Esfuerzo de los que continuaron pescando (N=20)

• 95% disminuyeron los días de pesca por semana y la cantidad de horas de pesca por día

• 65% reportaron una reducción en la cantidad de artes de pesca usadas

• 40% redujo la cantidad de tripulantes (1 o 2 tripulantes menos)

Especies capturadas

• 80% No cambió la composición de las especies capturadas

• 20% Cambió la composición de las especies

• por el toque de queda (Ej: pesca de colirubia y sierra)

• por el valor del producto en el mercado

• 90% Contestaron que los precios de venta se mantuvieron igual

Libras desembarcadas (N=19)

• 36% disminución de 50% o MÁS

• 36% disminución entre 40 y 50 libras por día de pesca

• 26% disminución de 49 % o MENOS

• 1 pescador reportó una disminución pero no la cuantificó

Ventas y formas de vender (N=20)

• 95% reportó una disminución en la ventas con promedio de 45 libras (rango 5 – 100 libras)

• 35% reportaron que cambió el comprador

• 40% reportaron que cambió la forma de procesar y distribuir el pescado

Costos operacionales (N=20)

• 55% No hubo cambios en los costos operacionales

• 40% Si hubo cambios: Aumento de costos operacionales

• 5% Si hubo cambios: Disminución de costos operacionales

Pérdida de equipo (N=20)

• 80% reportaron pérdidas o daños de artes o equipos de pesca

• Las pérdidas estimadas en equipos fueron un promedio de $1,864 por pescador.

Impacto económico (N=78)

• El 100% declaró pérdidas económicas durante el period o de 4 meses (del 15 de marzo al 18 de Julio de 2020)

• Las pérdidas totales fueron de $603,839 lo que equivale a un promedio de $8,272 por pescador

Agradecimientos

•Curso UPR-Humacao: Marcos Hanke, Eva M. Collazo-Montañez, Kiara M. TorresFigueroa, Gabriela S. Hernández Ramírez, Paola Sotomayor

•Pescadores Comerciales: Sr. Roberto Silva, Sr. Miguel Ortiz y los miembros de las organizaciones de pescadores que contestaron la encuesta

•Científicos: Dr. Miguel H. Del Pozo, Dra. Marisel Sepúlveda, MSc. Bayrex Rosa, Dra. Michelle Schärer

•Nuestro agradecimiento especial a la Directora del Departamento de Biología de la UPR- Humacao, la Dra. Melissa Colón Cesario y al Dr. Alejandro Torres Abreu

• Otros: Dra. Tarsila Seara, Dr. Juan Agar, Dr. Manuel Valdés-Pizzini

¿Preguntas?

Agradecimiento a todos los estudiantes

matriculados en el curso de Recursos pesqueros (Biol4626) de la UPR- Humacao.

Por su interés en aprender y aportar a la comunidad pesquera de Puerto Rico.

Cambios en la actividad pesquera comercial de Puerto Rico a raíz de la pandemia de COVID-19

Presentación de estudiantes UPR- Humacao, Biol-4626

Eva M. Collazo-Montañez, Kiara M. Torres-Figueroa, Gabriela S. Hernández Ramírez y

Paola Sotomayor

CFMC - 8 de diciembre de 2020

Introducción

• OBJETIVO: Conocer los impactos y medir los cambios causados por la pandemia del COVID-19 y la Orden Ejecutiva OE-2020-023 (y subsiguientes) en la actividad pesquera de Puerto Rico

• Pregunta: ¿Hubo cambios y de qué magnitud en la actividad pesquera a raíz de la pandemia?

• Participaron miembros de la industria pesquera de las organizaciones:

• Congreso de pescadores de Puerto Rico, Inc.

• Federación de Pescadores y Defensores del Mar, Inc. (FEPDEMAR)

Secuencia de eventos

• La Orden Ejecutiva 2020-023 (y subsiguientes) establecieron toques de queda durante los cuales estaba prohibido salir a pescar con la misma libertad de costumbre. Ejemplo: Toques de queda de 7:00 pm a 5:00 am.

• Mucha confusión al comienzo de la implementación del toque de queda. Luego quedó claro que los pescadores comerciales podían salir a pescar por ser parte de la cadena alimenticia de la isla. Ejemplo: Cantidad de proeles o asistentes.

• Las estructuras de mercadeo y venta de pescado se vieron afectadas.

• Surgió el interés de parte de la industria pesquera en documentar los impactos económicos.

Métodos

• Se implementó un cuestionario de 24 preguntas en Google Forms

• Estuvo disponible del 27 de junio al 18 de julio de 2020 (22 días)

• La participación de pescadores de PR fue anónima y voluntaria

• Todos los participantes pertenecen a una de las dos agrupaciones:

Congreso de pescadores de Puerto Rico, Inc. y FEPDEMAR, Inc.

Resultados

• Respuestas corresponden al periodo de 4 meses:

15 de marzo al 18 de julio del 2020

• Participaron 80 miembros del Congreso y FEPDEMAR de los cuales 78 aceptaron el consentimiento informado

• Los participantes pertenecen a 16 pueblos costeros

Grupo encuestado

• De los 78 participantes 83.3% tienen licencia comercial a tiempo parcial o completo (6 con certificación bonafide del Dept. de Agricultura), 10.3% licencia comercial principiante y 6.4% no tenían licencia vigente.

• Las artes de pesca más mencionadas fueron:

• La cala

• El cordel/caña o carrete

• Las nasas

Esfuerzo de Pesca

• 74% dejaron de pescar durante el periodo encuestado (58/78)

• 26% continuaron pescando (20/78)

Esfuerzo de los que continuaron pescando (N=20)

• 95% disminuyeron los días de pesca por semana y la cantidad de horas de pesca por día

• 65% reportaron una reducción en la cantidad de artes de pesca usadas

• 40% redujo la cantidad de tripulantes (1 o 2 tripulantes menos)

Especies capturadas

• 80% No cambió la composición de las especies capturadas

• 20% Cambió la composición de las especies

• por el toque de queda (Ej: pesca de colirubia y sierra)

• por el valor del producto en el mercado

• 90% Contestaron que los precios de venta se mantuvieron igual

Libras desembarcadas (N=19)

• 36% disminución de 50% o MÁS

• 36% disminución entre 40 y 50 libras por día de pesca

• 26% disminución de 49 % o MENOS

• 1 pescador reportó una disminución pero no la cuantificó

Ventas y formas de vender (N=20)

• 95% reportó una disminución en la ventas con promedio de 45 libras (rango 5 – 100 libras)

• 35% reportaron que cambió el comprador

• 40% reportaron que cambió la forma de procesar y distribuir el pescado

Costos operacionales (N=20)

• 55% No hubo cambios en los costos operacionales

• 40% Si hubo cambios: Aumento de costos operacionales

• 5% Si hubo cambios: Disminución de costos operacionales

Pérdida de equipo (N=20)

• 80% reportaron pérdidas o daños de artes o equipos de pesca

• Las pérdidas estimadas en equipos fueron un promedio de $1,864 por pescador.

Impacto económico (N=78)

• El 100% declaró pérdidas económicas durante el period o de 4 meses (del 15 de marzo al 18 de Julio de 2020)

• Las pérdidas totales fueron de $603,839 lo que equivale a un promedio de $8,272 por pescador

Agradecimientos

•Curso UPR-Humacao: Marcos Hanke, Eva M. Collazo-Montañez, Kiara M. TorresFigueroa, Gabriela S. Hernández Ramírez, Paola Sotomayor

•Pescadores Comerciales: Sr. Roberto Silva, Sr. Miguel Ortiz y los miembros de las organizaciones de pescadores que contestaron la encuesta

•Científicos: Dr. Miguel H. Del Pozo, Dra. Marisel Sepúlveda, MSc. Bayrex Rosa, Dra. Michelle Schärer

•Nuestro agradecimiento especial a la Directora del Departamento de Biología de la UPR- Humacao, la Dra. Melissa Colón Cesario y al Dr. Alejandro Torres Abreu

• Otros: Dra. Tarsila Seara, Dr. Juan Agar, Dr. Manuel Valdés-Pizzini

¿Preguntas?

Agradecimiento a todos los estudiantes

matriculados en el curso de Recursos pesqueros (Biol4626) de la UPR- Humacao.

Por su interés en aprender y aportar a la comunidad pesquera de Puerto Rico.

Sta.s.cal Commi6ee

Caribbean Fishery Management Council

172nd Mee.ng

December 8, 2020

Topics Addressed

• Ecosystem Conceptual Model

• Spiny Lobster Constant OFL/ABC

• Executive Order 13921: Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth

SSC Ecosystem Conceptual Model

Model has 8 Submodels

Submodels have variable number of components

• Marine Ecosystem Components (12)

• Compe8ng Use of Resources (15)

• Socio-economic and Cultural Drivers (16)

• Land-Based Uses (8)

• Fishing (10)

• Water Quality (6)

• Habitat (5)

• Abio8c Factors (9)

Model has 8 Submodels

Submodels have variable number of components

• Marine Ecosystem Components (12)

• Compe8ng Use of Resources (15)

• Socio-economic and Cultural Drivers (16)

• Land-Based Uses (8)

• Fishing (10)

• Water Quality (6)

• Habitat (5)

• Abio8c Factors (9)

Over 64,000 poten.al connec.ons!

Full Conceptual Model

Mar Ecosystem Drivers Abio.c Factors Habitat Water Quality Fishing Land-based Uses Compe.ng Uses Marine Resources Socio-economic Cultural Drivers

Connec.ons between Submodels

Priority Connec.ons between Components within Each Pair of Submodels Iden.fy the 3 most important connec.ons, their direc.on, and their strength

• A way to start and focus the SSC as it evaluates the over 64,000 poten.al component-to-component connec.ons within the ECM

• Interim Results for the Council and its EBFM TAP

• Results should also be made available to other interested user groups

• Caribbean Lenfest project/team

• SEFSC’s Ecosystem Status Report

Priority Assessment Form

Example: The three most important component connec.ons from the Socio-Economic and Cultural Drivers (S-E-C) submodel affec.ng the Fishing submodel could be:

• Seafood Imports/Exports affec.ng Commercial Fishing Catch

• Market Demand affec.ng Commercial Fishing Catch

• Tourism affec.ng Recrea.onal Fishing Catch

In this case, two of the driver components affect the same target component.

Driver Component

Seafood Imports/ Exports

Fishing

(response submodel)

Response Component Direc.on (+/-)

Strength (L/ M/H) S-E-C

Market Demand

(driver submodel)

Tourism

Commercial Fishing Catch 0 M

Commercial Fishing Catch + H

Recrea.onal Fishing Catch + H

Example: Just 1 Out of 56 Sets of Comparisons

• 484 = Connec.ons iden.fied between components across submodels

• 788 = Total connec.ons including within submodels

Coastal Development

19 Regulatory Structure

Inshore Forage Fishes 28

Coral Reefs 23 Sea Grass Beds 27 Fishing Grounds

SSC Ecosystem Conceptual Model

SSC Ecosystem Conceptual Model (Inter-Connec.ons; September 2020)

Spiny Lobster 3-Year Constant ABC

Spiny Lobster 3-Year Constant ABC

• The SSC recommends that the approach to determining a 3-year constant ABC for spiny lobster is to determine a 3-year OFL and apply a constant buffer (P*).

• The constant OFL is determined by taking the 3-year average OFL.

• With the current data available, the resulting recommended values for the years 2021, 2022, and 2023 constant OFLs are

• 420,510 lbs for PR,

• 170,247 lbs for St Thomas, and

• 167,897 lbs for St. Croix;

• and for the years 2021, 2022, and 2023 constant ABCs are

• 370,853 lbs for PR,

• 150,143 lbs for St. Thomas, and

• 148,071 lbs for St. Croix.

• These values may change with new data.

Executive Order 13921

Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth

Executive Order 13921

Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth

Sec. 2. Policy. It is the policy of the Federal Government to:

(a) identify and remove unnecessary regulatory barriers restricting American fishermen and aquaculture producers;

(b) combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing;

(c) provide good stewardship of public funds and stakeholder time and resources, and avoid duplicative, wasteful, or inconclusive permitting processes;

(d) facilitate aquaculture projects through regulatory transparency and long-term strategic planning;

(e) safeguard our communities and maintain a healthy aquatic environment

In light of Executive Order 13921, the SSC recommends to the CFMC that the necessary resources be made available to (1) conduct resource surveys to determine the abundance of key marine resources in the U.S. Caribbean, and (2) conduct quantitative stock assessments that can provide guidance on OFL limits (i.e., Tiers 1-3 of the ABC Control Rule).

COMPATIBLE REGULATIONS

St. Croix IBFMP

TOPICS: GEAR FISH SPINY

LOBSTER

GOAL: Prioritization

■ Impact

■ Significance of difference with federal regulations

■ Type of policy change needed

Fish trap construction

Mesh size

Escape panels

Buoy marking

Trap lines

Fish

■ Size limits

– Yellowtail snapper (federal/state)

– Parrotfish (federal/state)

■ Prohibited Species

– Midnight, Blue, Rainbow (federal/state)

Spiny Lobster

■ Size limit

■ Tail weight imports

■ Attractants – Egg bearing – Undersize

■ Recreational bag limit (federal/state)

Modifications to the Buoy Gear Definition for the Harvest of Managed Reef Fish in Federal Waters of Puerto Rico, St. Croix, and St. Thomas/St. John

Draft Options Paper

For a Generic Amendment to the Comprehensive Fishery Management Plans for Puerto Rico, St. Thomas/St. John, and St. Croix

November 2020

1. Background

At the 170th Caribbean Fishery Management Council (Council) regular meeting in August 2020, the Council requested staff begin work on an amendment to each of the Puerto Rico, St. Thomas/St. John, and St. Croix fishery management plans (FMP) (island-based FMPs), once implemented, that would allow for the use of a specific hook and line gear type currently used to fish commercially for deep water reef fish in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI). At the same meeting, the Council also tasked staff to consider whether gill and trammel nets or any other applicable gear should be included as authorized gear types when fishing for certain species managed under each of the island-based FMPs. This Options Paper pertains only to the use of specific hook and line gear (buoy gear) and lists potential options to include and evaluate in an amendment to each of the island-based FMPs to consider changes to the definition of buoy gear used to fish for managed reef fish. Consideration of other gear types will be addressed in the near future through a separate amendment to the island-based FMPs.

The commercial Longline/Hook and Line Fishery for managed reef fish in each of the Puerto Rico, St. Thomas/St. John, and St. Croix FMPs includes longline and hook and line (50 CFR 600.725(V) gear table) (Table 1.1). Appendix A lists the species included under the Reef Fish category of each the island-based FMPs. Deep-water snappers (e.g., queen snapper, cardinal snapper) are currently included for management under this category. The island-based FMPs were approved by the Secretary of Commerce on September 22, 2020 and regulations to implement the plans are under development. The island-based FMPs are expected to be in effect in 2021.

Table 1.1. Authorized gear types for the commercial sector of the Reef Fish Fishery in each of the island-based FMPs.

Reef Fish Fishery

Gear Type

Commercial Longline/hook and line fishery Longline, hook and line

Commercial Trap/pot fishery Trap, pot

Other commercial fishery Spear

*The gear table will be updated in the regulations implemented the island-based FMPs.

Federal regulations at 50 CFR Part 622.2 define hook and line as automatic reel, bandit gear, buoy gear, handline, longline, and rod and reel. Hook and line gear types are defined as follows:

Automatic reel means a reel that remains attached to a vessel when in use from which a line and attached hook(s) are deployed. The line is payed out from and retrieved on the reel electrically or hydraulically.

Bandit gear means a rod and reel that remain attached to a vessel when in use from which a line and attached hook(s) are deployed. The line is payed out from and retrieved on the reel manually, electrically, or hydraulically.

Buoy gear means fishing gear that fishes vertically in the water column that consists of a single drop line suspended from a float, from which no more than 10 hooks can be connected between the buoy and the terminal end, and the terminal end contains a weight that is no more than 10 lb (4.5 kg). The drop line can be rope (hemp, manila, cotton or other natural fibers; nylon, polypropylene, spectra or other synthetic material) or monofilament, but must not be cable or wire. The gear is free-floating and not connected to other gear or the vessel. The drop line must be no greater than 2 times the depth of the water being fished. All hooks must be attached to the drop line no more than 30 ft (9.1 m) from the weighted terminal end. These hooks may be attached directly to the drop line; attached as snoods (defined as an offshoot line that is directly spliced, tied or otherwise connected to the drop line), where each snood has a single terminal hook; or as gangions (defined as an offshoot line connected to the drop line with some type of detachable clip), where each gangion has a single terminal hook.

Handline means a line with attached hook(s) that is tended directly by hand.

Longline means a line that is deployed horizontally to which gangions and hooks are attached. A longline may be a bottom longline, i.e., designed for use on the bottom, or a pelagic longline, i.e., designed for use off the bottom. The longline hauler may be manually, electrically, or hydraulically operated.

Rod and reel means a rod and reel unit that is not attached to a vessel, or, if attached, is readily removable, from which a line and attached hook(s) are deployed. The line is payed out from and retrieved on the reel manually, electrically, or hydraulically.

1.1 Issue to be addressed in a proposed amendment to the island-based FMPs

In Puerto Rico and the USVI, commercial fishermen harvesting deep-water snappers (e.g., queen and cardinal snappers) have traditionally used a gear type locally known as “cala con boya” in

Puerto Rico and as “deep-drop buoy gear” in the USVI. Although this locally used commercial fishing gear type is very similar to the buoy gear defined in federal regulations applicable to Caribbean fisheries described above, it differs in the number of hooks that are allowed to be used with the gear. The buoy gear type defined in 50 CFR Part 622.2 cannot contain more than 10 hooks connected between the buoy and the terminal end, while the local deep-water reef fish buoy gear typically can contain up to 25 hooks connected between the buoy and the terminal end. The use of any gear not listed as authorized for the fishery is prohibited (50 CFR 600.725(v)). Therefore, this gear type cannot be used by fishermen participating in the commercial reef fish fishery until it is added as an allowable gear type under the island-based FMPs.

Purpose and Need (DRAFT)

The purpose of this amendment is to modify the definition of buoy gear as it applies to the commercial sector of the longline/hook and line fishery for managed reef fish in each of the island-based FMPs to allow for the use of a specific buoy gear type traditionally used in the U.S. Caribbean to fish for deep-water fish (e.g. snappers).

The need is to ensure that commercial fishermen can use the gear type traditionally used to harvest deep-water reef fish in the U.S. Caribbean

2. Action and Potential Options

A different option can be selected for each island management area

Option 1 (No action). The current gear types authorized under the commercial longline/hook and line fishery for managed reef fish in the FMP: automatic reel, bandit gear, buoy gear, handline, longline, and rod and reel would remain as specified in 50 CFR Part 622. The current definition of buoy gear would be retained.

- Under this option, no changes would be made to the list of allowable gear types or how they are defined under the commercial longline/hook and line fishery for managed reef fish. The gear type currently used in Puerto Rico and the USVI to fish for deep water reef fish (snappers) would continue to not be allowed in federal waters to harvest managed reef fish. Fishermen would need to make arrangements to fish under the current definition, which would require them to reduce the number of hooks used to 10

Option 2. Retain the current gear types authorized under the commercial longline/hook and line fishery for managed reef fish in the FMP: automatic reel, bandit gear, buoy gear, handline, longline, and rod and reel. Modify the definition of buoy gear as it applies to the longline/hook and line fishery for managed reef fish to allow the use of up to 25 hooks connected between the buoy and the terminal end.

- Similar to Option 1, this option would not change the list of allowable gear types under the commercial longline/hook and line fishery for managed reef fish, but would modify the definition of buoy gear under this fishery so that it can include the configuration of the buoy gear type used by fishermen in Puerto Rico and the USVI to harvest deep-water fish (snappers) in both territorial and federal waters.

- The applicable regulations could include a specific definition, which would be the same definition of buoy gear but with a maximum of 25 hooks instead of a maximum of 10 hooks.

- In the future, if a federal permit is desired, the buoy gear for managed Caribbean reef fish could be re-defined to be specific to deep water snappers, and the deep water snapper category would be defined to mean specific species.

Option 3. If needed, same as Option 2 but proposing the use of less # of hooks.

- An option 3 may not be necessary as the 25 hooks proposed in Option 2 are a max, the use of less hooks could be evaluated under Option 2.

3. References

CFMC (Caribbean Fishery Management Council). 1985. Fishery management plan, final environmental impact statement, and draft regulatory impact review for the shallow-water reef fish fishery of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Caribbean Fishery Management Council, San Juan, Puerto Rico. 69pp. + Appendices.

CFMC (Caribbean Fishery Management Council). 2019a Comprehensive Fishery Management Plan for the Puerto Rico Exclusive Economic Zone, environmental assessment, regulatory impact review, and fishery impact statement. Caribbean Fishery Management Council, San Juan, Puerto Rico. 637 pp.

CFMC (Caribbean Fishery Management Council). 2019b Comprehensive Fishery Management Plan for the St. Thomas/ St. John Exclusive Economic Zone, environmental assessment, regulatory impact review, and fishery impact statement. Caribbean Fishery Management Council, San Juan, Puerto Rico. 507 pp.

CFMC (Caribbean Fishery Management Council). 2019c Comprehensive Fishery Management Plan for the St. Croix Exclusive Economic Zone, environmental assessment, regulatory impact review, and fishery impact statement. Caribbean Fishery Management Council, San Juan, Puerto Rico. 509 pp.

CFMC. 2020a. 170th Meeting Verbatim Transcripts. August 11-12, 2020. https://caribbeanfmc.com/meetings/CFMC%20MEETINGS/170_CFMC_Regular_Virtual_Meeti ng_August_2020/170th_CFMC_Verbatim_Transcripts_August_2020.pdf

CFMC. 2020b. After the meeting documents, Font translated letter. 170th Caribbean Fishery Management Council Regular Meeting. August 11-12, 2020. https://caribbeanfmc.com/After_the_Meeting_Documents/170_After_the_Meet_Docs/Traduccio n_carta_pescador_ago2020.pdf

Appendix A.

List of Managed Reef Fish Included in

of the Island-based FMPs

St. Croix Reef Fish

• Snappers: black, blackfin, silk, vermilion, queen, lane, gray, mutton, schoolmaster, yellowtail

• Groupers: Nassau, goliath, graysby, coney, red hind, rock hind, black, red, tiger, yellowfin, misty

• Parrotfishes: blue, midnight, rainbow, queen, princess, redtail, stoplight, redband, striped, redfin

• Surgeonfishes: blue tang, ocean surgeonfish, doctorfish

• Triggerfishes: queen

• Angelfishes: queen, grey, French

• Grunts: white grunt, bluestriped

• Squirrelfish: longspine squirrelfish

St. Thomas/St John Reef Fish

• Snappers: black, blackfin, silk, vermilion, queen, lane, mutton, yellowtail

• Groupers: Nassau, goliath, coney, red hind, black, red, tiger, yellowfin, yellowmouth*, yellowedge, misty

• Parrotfishes: blue, midnight, rainbow, queen, princess, redtail, stoplight, redband, striped, redfin

• Surgeonfishes: blue tang, ocean surgeonfish, doctorfish

• Triggerfishes: queen

• Wrasses: hogfish

• Angelfishes: queen, grey, French

• Grunts: white grunt, bluestriped, margate

• Jacks: Blue runner

• Porgies: jolthead, saucereye, sheepshead, sea bream

* New to management

Puerto Rico Reef Fish

• Snappers: black, blackfin, silk, vermilion, wenchman, cardinal, queen, lane, mutton, dog, schoolmaster, yellowtail, cubera*

• Groupers: Nassau, goliath, coney, graysby, black, red, tiger, yellowfin, yellowmouth*, yellowedge, misty, red hind, rock hind

• Parrotfishes: blue, midnight, rainbow, queen, princess, redtail, stoplight, redband, striped

• Surgeonfishes: blue tang, ocean surgeonfish, doctorfish

• Triggerfishes: ocean, queen, gray*

• Wrasses: hogfish, puddingwife, Spanish hogfish

• Angelfishes: queen, grey, French

• Grunts: white grunt

• Jacks: crevalle jack*, African pompano*, rainbow runner* * New to management

Appendix B. History of Management

Prior to the development of the island-based FMPs, reef fish in the U.S. Caribbean were managed under the Reef Fish FMP (CMFC 1985), as amended. The history of management actions taken to date under the Reef Fish FMP are summarized in Appendix C.1 of each the island-based FMPs.

On June 26, 2020, a Notice of Availability (NOA; 85 FR 38350) was published requesting comments on the three island-based FMPs. The Puerto Rico FMP (CFMC 2019a), the St. Thomas and St. John FMP (CFMC 2019b), and the St. Croix FMP (CFMC 2019c), in combination, would replace the existing U.S. Caribbean-wide FMPs. Each island-based FMP would establish management measures for the EEZ around the respective island and would retain most of the current management measures established under the U.S. Caribbean-wide FMPs that apply to the respective island management area (e.g., seasonal and area closures, minimum size limits, recreational bag limits). In addition, each island-based FMP would revise other management measures such as the species included for federal management, ACLs, and accountability measures.

On September 22, 2020, the National Marine Fisheries Service approved each of the islandbased FMPs. Regulations to implement the island-based FMP are under development.

Modification of Spiny Lobster Management Reference

Points Based on SEDAR 57 Stock Assessments

Draft Framework Amendment to the Fishery Management Plans for Puerto Rico, St. Thomas/St. John, and St. Croix

Version 1 November 2020

Abbreviations and Acronyms Used in this Document

ABC acceptable biological catch

ACL annual catch limit

AM accountability measure

CFMC (Council); Caribbean Fishery Management Council

EEZ exclusive economic zone

EIS environmental impact statement

FMP fishery management plan

FMSY fishing mortality rate yielding MSY

MFMT maximum fishing mortality threshold

MSA (Magnuson-Stevens Act); Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act

MSST minimum stock size threshold

MSY maximum sustainable yield

NMFS National Marine Fisheries Service

OFL overfishing limit

OY optimum yield

SDC status determination criteria

SEDAR Southeast data assessment review (stock assessment)

SEFSC Southeast Fisheries Science Center

SSC Scientific and Statistical Committee

SYL sustainable yield level

USVI United States Virgin Islands

List of Tables

Table 1.1. Spiny lobster ABCs and ACLs as specified for federal waters under the Puerto Rico FMP, St. Thomas/St. John FMP, and St. Croix FMP. Values are in pounds whole weight. ......... 8

Table 2.1. Management reference points from SEDAR 57 spiny lobster stock assessments for each island/island group. ............................................................................................................... 10

Table 2.2. Variable-catch OFLs and ABCs for spiny lobster for 2021-2023 for each island/island group, based on SEDAR 57 stock assessments and Tier 3 of the ABC Control Rule included in each island-based FMP. All values are in pounds whole weight. ............................. 11

Table 2.3. Constant-catch OFL and ABC for spiny lobster for each island/island group, based on SEDAR 57 stock assessments and Tier 3 of the ABC Control Rule included in each islandbased FMP. All values are in pounds whole weight. ................................................................... 12

Table 2.4. Constant-catch ACLs for spiny lobster for each island/island group based on the constant-catch ABC recommended by the SSC as reduced by the Council’s management uncertainty buffer (Alternative 2, Sub-alternatives 2a-2c). .......................................................... 14

Table 2.5. Variable-catch ACLs for spiny lobster for each island area for 2021-2023 based on the variable-catch ABCs recommended by the SSC as reduced by the Council’s management uncertainty buffer (Alternative 3, Sub-alternatives 3a-3c). .......................................................... 14

Table 2.6. Illustration of how the Action 2 alternatives would compare available landings to the spiny lobster ACL in a given year, assuming that the island-based FMPs and the Spiny Lobster Amendment are both implemented in 2021. ................................................................................. 17

Chapter 1. Introduction

The Caribbean Fishery Management Council (Council) is one of eight regional fishery management councils established by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976. The Council prepares fishery management plans (FMP) and amendments to those FMPs that are designed to manage fishery resources within the federal waters of the U.S. Caribbean, which includes waters off Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI)

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is responsible for the stewardship of the nation's ocean resources and their habitat. Specifically, NMFS is responsible for the collection of data and for conducting stock assessments in support of science-based fishery management to prevent overfishing and rebuild overfished fish stocks. The Council develops an amendment and sends it to NMFS who implements the measures in the amendment on behalf of the Secretary. NMFS is responsible for implementing and enforcing management measures based on the FMPs and amendments. The U.S. Caribbean falls under the jurisdiction of NMFS’ Southeast Regional Office (SERO).

1.1 What Action is Being Proposed?

This framework amendment would update the management reference points, including status determination criteria (SDC), included in the Comprehensive FMP for the Puerto Rico Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) (Puerto Rico FMP), the St. Thomas/St. John EEZ (St. Thomas/St. John FMP), and the Comprehensive FMP for the St. Croix EEZ (St. Croix FMP), for spiny lobster based on the Southeast Data, Assessment, and Review 57 (SEDAR 57) stock assessments conducted in 2019.

The framework amendment would update the SDC values for spiny lobster in each FMP, including the maximum fishing mortality threshold (MFMT), the minimum stock size threshold (MSST), and the overfishing limit (OFL) or OFL proxy, which are used to

of Spiny Lobster

SDC and Management Reference Points

Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) – The largest long-term average catch or yield that can be taken from a stock or stock complex under prevailing ecological, environmental conditions and fishing technology characteristics (e.g., gear characteristics) and the distribution of catch among fleets.

Maximum Fishing Mortality Threshold (MFMT) – The level of fishing mortality (F), on an annual basis, above which overfishing is occurring. The MFMT or reasonable proxy may be expressed either as a single number (a fishing mortality rate or F value), or as a function of spawning biomass or other measure of reproductive potential.

Minimum Stock Size Threshold (MSST) – The biomass level below which the capacity of the stock to produce MSY on a continuing basis has been jeopardized. A stock or stock complex is considered overfished when its biomass has declined below MSST.

Overfishing Limit (OFL) – The annual amount of catch that corresponds to the estimate of MFMT applied to a stock or stock complex’s abundance and is expressed in terms of numbers or weight of fish.

Acceptable Biological Catch (ABC) – The catch level recommended by the SSC and set at or below OFL to account for scientific uncertainty.

Annual Catch Limit (ACL) – The limit of total annual catch for a stock or stock complex that serves as the basis for invoking accountability measures. The ACL cannot exceed the ABC.

determine if the stock is undergoing overfishing, or if the stock is overfished (16 U.S.C. 1853(a)(10); 50 CFR 600.310(e)(2)(i)). The framework amendment would also update the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) or MSY proxy, acceptable biological catch (ABC), optimum yield (OY), and annual catch limit (ACL) for spiny lobster in each FMP, which are designed to ensure that management prevents overfishing while achieving OY (50 CFR 600.310(b)(2)).

1.2 Why is the Council Considering Action?

The Council is considering this action to update SDC and management reference points following the spiny lobster stock assessments conducted in 2019 through SEDAR 57. Additionally, for each FMP, the Council would update management reference points for spiny lobster following the stock’s change from Tier 4a (data limited, no accepted assessment available) to Tier 3 (data limited, accepted assessment available) in the Council’s ABC Control Rule.

1.2.1 Statement of Purpose and Need

The purpose of this framework amendment is to modify the management reference points and SDC for spiny lobster in each of the Puerto Rico, St. Thomas/St. John, and St. Croix FMPs based on results of the SEDAR 57 stock assessment following guidance established in the Council’s ABC Control Rule and make any necessary changes to accountability measures.

The need for this framework amendment is to update the values for management reference points and SDC for spiny lobster in each of the Puerto Rico, St. Thomas/St. John, and St. Croix FMPs based on best scientific information available for spiny lobster stocks to prevent overfishing and achieve OY consistent with the requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

1.3 Where Will the Action Have an Effect?

The Council is responsible for managing fishery resources in federal waters in the U.S. Caribbean off Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico EEZ), St. Thomas/St. John (St. Thomas/St. John EEZ), and St. Croix (St. Croix EEZ). The Puerto Rico EEZ is located 9-200 nautical miles (17-370 kilometers) from shore and the St. Thomas/St. John EEZ and St. Croix EEZ are located 3-200 nautical miles (6-370 kilometers) from shore.

This framework amendment would apply to spiny lobster stocks managed under the Puerto Rico FMP, St. Thomas/St. John FMP, and St. Croix FMP.

1.4 SEDAR 57 Spiny Lobster Stock Assessment

The Southeast Data, Assessment, and Review (SEDAR) process conducted and completed stock assessments on three spiny lobster stocks, one for each of the three island areas (Puerto Rico, St. Thomas/St. John, and St. Croix) in 2019 (SEDAR 57 2019; http://sedarweb.org/sedar-57). Due to the lack of an estimable spawner-recruit relationship, MSY could not be reliably estimated for the three spiny lobster stocks. Therefore, the stock status, OFL and projected landings were presented relative to a provisional MSY proxy of FSPR30%. 1

SEDAR 57 used management threshold definitions of FSPR30% for the MFMT and 75% of SSPR30% for the MSST. The assessments estimated that the fishing mortality was below MFMT and the spawning output was above MSST. Thus, each spiny lobster stock was not determined to be undergoing overfishing or overfished.

Overfishing occurs whenever a stock or stock complex is subjected to a level of fishing mortality or total catch that jeopardizes the capacity of a stock or stock complex to produce MSY on a continuing basis.

Overfished. A stock or stock complex is considered “overfished” when its biomass has declined below the MSST.

The Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) reviewed the results from SEDAR 57 and determined that the stock assessments are suitable for management advice. Specifically, the SSC (1) supported the three island-based spiny lobster stock assessments (statistical catch at age models) as providing the best scientific information available relative to the SDC of overfishing status and overfished status; (2) accepted the FSPR30% as an MSY proxy; (3) supported the outcome of the SEDAR 57 that overfishing is not occurring relative to the recommended MFMT and that the populations are not overfished relative to the recommended MSST; and (4) supported and recommended the use of the assessments to update the values for management reference points and SDC in each of the island-based FMPs, once implemented, using the Council’s ABC Control Rule included in each the island-based FMPs as described below.

1.5 Acceptable Biological Catch Control Rule

The ABC is a level of annual catch recommended by the Council’s SSC, which accounts for the scientific uncertainty in the estimate of the OFL, any other scientific uncertainty, and the Council’s risk policy (50 CFR 600.310(f)(1)(ii)). The Council's risk policy could be based on an acceptable probability (at least 50%) that catch equal to the stock's ABC will not result in overfishing. The Council's choice of a risk policy cannot result in an ABC that exceeds the OFL (50 CFR 600.310(f)(2)(i)). Councils and their SSC should develop a process by which the SSC can access the best scientific information available when implementing the ABC Control Rule

1 The FMSY proxy of FSPR30% is calculated from spawning-stock-biomass-per-recruit (SPR) analyses. Under conditions of no fishing mortality, 100% of a stock’s spawning potential is obtained. A fishing mortality rate, denoted by FSPR30% would allow the stock to attain 30% of the maximum spawning potential, which would have been obtained under conditions of no fishing mortality.

(i.e., specifying the ABC) (50 CFR 600.310(f)(3). The SSC must recommend the ABC to the Council.

Each of the Puerto Rico, St. Thomas/St. John, and St. Croix FMPs adopt and apply a newly devised, four-tiered ABC Control Rule to specify SDC (i.e., MFMT, MSST, and OFL or OFL proxy) and management reference points (i.e., MSY or MSY proxy and ABC), depending on differing levels of data availability (see Appendix A). In each FMP, spiny lobster was considered a Tier 4a stock (data limited with no accepted assessment, but with relatively low vulnerability to fishing pressure). 2 In the FMPs, the MSY proxy, MFMT, and MSST for Tier 4a stocks were defined but, due to data limitations, were not quantified. Similarly, under Tier 4a, the OFL could not be quantified. Thus, a new reference point, the sustainable yield level (SYL), which is a level of landings that can be sustained over the long-term, was used as the OFL proxy and an additional MSY proxy. 3 From the calculated Tier 4 SYLs and ABCs for the spiny lobster stocks, the Council set the ACL in each FMP at 95% of the recommended ABC to account for management uncertainty (Table 1.1).

Table 1.1. Spiny lobster ABCs and ACLs as specified for federal waters under the Puerto Rico FMP, St. Thomas/St. John FMP, and St. Croix FMP. Values are in pounds whole weight.

Based on the uncertainty in the catch data inputted into the SEDAR 57 stock assessment models, the SSC in consultation with the Southeast Fisheries Science Center recommended that spiny lobster be classified as a Tier 3 stock (data limited, accepted assessment available) under the ABC Control Rule for each FMP. The MSY proxy, MFMT, and MSST reference points for spiny lobster determined from the SEDAR 57 assessments, once updated through this framework amendment, would remain in place until new stock assessments are conducted. SEDAR 57 projected provisional OFLs corresponding to the level of catch at the MSY proxy, which could be updated via an interim assessment to account for changes in actual landings data from the landings data used in the assessment, if so requested by the Council. Under Tier 3 of the ABC Control Rule, the ABC is derived from the OFL, reduced by the SSC’s scientific uncertainty

2 Spiny lobster was considered to be a Tier 4a stock in each FMP due in part to recruitment (the species is found throughout the Caribbean and the duration of the larval stage is several months) and sizes of spiny lobsters that are harvested compared to the minimum size limit in place (average carapace lengths observed were greater than the minimum size limit of 3.5 inches carapace length).

3 The SYL is intended to be used when the information or resources needed to produce a quantitative stock assessment are not available to determine the MSY or corresponding reference point such as the OFL, and therefore it is specific to Tier 4.

of Spiny Lobster

buffer (sigma; in this case sigma = 1.0) and reflecting the acceptable probability of overfishing determined by the Council (P*; in this case P* = 0.45). 4 Similar to the process used for Tier 4 of the ABC Control Rule in the island-based FMPs for spiny lobster stocks, the Council could apply a buffer to the ABC when establishing the ACL to account for management uncertainty.

1.6 History of Federal Management

The spiny lobster stock was historically managed in the U.S. Caribbean EEZ under the Spiny Lobster FMP (Spiny Lobster FMP) of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) (CFMC 1981), which was implemented in 1984. 5 Spiny lobster ACLs were established for each island/island group under the Comprehensive ACL Amendment for the U.S. Caribbean (CFMC 2011b) (2011 Caribbean ACL Amendment; 76 FR 82413 December 30, 2011). Local regulations for the management of spiny lobster have been in place in the USVI since 1972 and in Puerto Rico at least since 1981. The history of management actions taken to date under the Spiny Lobster FMP are summarized in Appendix C of each island-based FMP.

At their April 2019 regular meeting, the Council voted to approve three new FMPs and submit to NMFS for review, approval, and implementation: the Puerto Rico FMP (CFMC 2019a), St. Thomas and St. John FMP (CFMC 2019b), and St. Croix FMP (CFMC 2019c). Each islandbased FMP established management measures for the EEZ around each respective island. The island-based FMPs updated the list of species included for federal management, management reference points and SDC, including ACLs, and accountability measures, and retained most of the other management measures established under the U.S. Caribbean-wide FMPs that apply to the respective island management area (e.g., seasonal and area closures, minimum size limits, recreational bag limits).

On June 26, 2020, a Notice of Availability (85 FR 38350) was published requesting comments on the three island-based FMPs. The Secretary of Commerce approved the FMPs on Sept 24, 2020. A proposed rule, followed by a final rule will be published in the near future.

4 The SSC set a sigma value of 1.0 at their May 2020 meeting and the Council set a P* value of 0.45 at their June 2020 meeting.

5 Under the Spiny Lobster FMP, MSY was estimated for the three island areas (Puerto Rico, St. Thomas/St. John, St. Croix) and then summed to provide an estimate for the entire management area (U.S. Caribbean EEZ).

Modification of Spiny Lobster

Chapter 2. Proposed Actions and Alternatives

Framework procedures allow for modifying management measures listed in each of the islandbased fishery management plans (FMP) in certain situations, including when a new stock assessment indicates changes should be made to related management reference points and status determination criteria (SDC) (See Table 5.12.1 in each FMP). Based on the SEDAR 57 results for spiny lobster in Puerto Rico, St. Thomas/St. John, and St. Croix, and using Tier 3 of the Caribbean Fishery Management Council’s (Council) Acceptable Biological Catch (ABC) Control Rule included in each FMP, this framework amendment would update the values for the following reference points for the spiny lobster stock in each FMP: maximum sustainable yield (MSY) or MSY proxy, maximum fishing mortality threshold (MFMT), and minimum stock size threshold (MSST) (Table 2.1). As explained above, the MSY proxy, MFMT, and MSST reference points for spiny lobster determined from the SEDAR 57 assessments, once updated through this framework amendment, would remain in place until new stock assessments are conducted through the full stock assessment process.

Under this action, if the biomass of the spiny lobster stock falls below MSST, which would be set equal to 75% of the long-term spawning stock biomass at MFMT (SSBMFMT), the stock would be determined to be overfished (i.e., if B/MSST <1).

Table 2.1. Management reference points from SEDAR 57 spiny lobster stock assessments for each island/island group.

* Values are in pounds whole

Additionally, following outcomes from the spiny lobster stock assessments, the Council would update the overfishing limit (OFL), ABC, and annual catch limit (ACL) for the spiny lobster stock in each island/island group (Action 1) and would revise the sequence of years of landing data that are compared to the ACL to determine if an accountability measure (AM) for spiny lobster is triggered (Action 2). The OFLs, ABCs, and ACLs likewise would remain in place until revised, but could be updated following an interim assessment that accounts for updated landings information, but uses past assessment assumptions and information.

2.1 Action 1 – Spiny Lobster OFLs, ABCs, and ACLs

At their September 2020 meeting, the Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) considered for recommendation to the Council both a variable-catch approach and a constantcatch approach for updating spiny lobster OFLs and ABCs for the period of 2021-2023 under each FMP. Both approaches use the island-specific OFLs projected from the stock assessment model and the ABC estimates determined by applying Tier 3 of the Council’s ABC Control Rule. 6

For the variable-catch approach, the SSC recommended variable OFLs and ABCs for spiny lobster for each FMP based on the model projections of OFL presented by the Southeast Fisheries Science Center at that meeting. The model projected an OFL that changed each year for 2021 to 2023 for each island/island group (Table 2.2). For the constant-catch approach, the SSC recommended a constant-catch ABC derived from a constant-catch OFL. The constantcatch OFL would be set equal to the average of the 2021-2023 OFLs (Table 2.3).

Through Action 1, the Council would select the process for determining the ACL(s) from the ABC(s) recommended by the SSC for spiny lobster in each island/island group based on the Council’s preferred approach for determining OFLs and ABCs (i.e., variable-catch or constantcatch approach). The ACL would be set equal to OY for the stock.

The Council could select a different alternative for each island/island group.

Table 2.2. Variable-catch OFLs and ABCs for spiny lobster for 2021-2023 for each island/island group, based on SEDAR 57 stock assessments and Tier 3 of the ABC Control Rule included in each island-based FMP. All values are in pounds whole weight.

6 https://www.caribbeanfmc.com/meetings/SSC%20MEETINGS/SSC_2020/SEFSC_9341 SEDAR_57_for_SSC_SEP2020.pdf

Table 2.3. Constant-catch OFL and ABC 7 for spiny lobster for each island/island group, based on SEDAR 57 stock assessments and Tier 3 of the ABC Control Rule included in each islandbased FMP. All values are in pounds whole weight.

2.1.1 Proposed Alternatives for Action 1

Alternative 1 – No Action. The overfishing SDC, ABC, and the ACL (=OY) for spiny lobster would remain as specified under the Puerto Rico FMP (ACL = 527,232 lbs), St. Thomas/St. John FMP (ACL = 209,210 lbs), and St. Croix FMP (ACL = 197,528 lbs).

Alternative 2 – Select the constant-catch approach for specif ying the OFL and ABC for spiny lobster based on SEDAR 57 (Table 2.3), and use the constant-catch ABC to derive the spiny lobster constant-catch ACL (=OY), under one of the sub-alternatives listed below. 8

Sub-alternative 2a. OY = ACL = ABC

Sub-alternative 2b. OY = ACL = ABC x 0.95

Sub-alternative 2c. OY = ACL = ABC x 0.90

Alternative 3 – Select the variable-catch approach for specif ying OFLs and ABCs for spiny lobster for 2021-2023 based on SEDAR 57 (Table 2.2), and use the variable-catch ABCs to derive the spiny lobster variable-catch ACLs (=OY) for 2021-2023, under one of the subalternatives listed below. The OFL, ABC, and ACL for 2024 and beyond would remain at the 2023 level unless modified by subsequent rulemaking. 9

Sub-alternative 3a. OY = ACL = ABC

Sub-alternative 3b. OY = ACL = ABC x 0.95

Sub-alternative 3c. OY = ACL = ABC x 0.90

7 For each island area, the constant OFL and constant ABC are equal to the average of the 2021-2023 annual OFLs and ABCs, respectively.

8 If the Council considers Alternative 2 (constant-catch approach), the Council can request the SSC discuss using the constant-catch ABC recommended for 2021-2023 in subsequent years, in the event that updated OFLs, ABCs, and ACLs for spiny lobster are not in place by 2024.

9 If the Council considers Alternative 3 (variable-catch approach), the Council can request the SSC discuss using the ABC recommended for 2023 in subsequent years, in the event that updated OFLs, ABCs, and ACLs for spiny lobster are not in place by 2024.

of Spiny Lobster

2.1.2

Discussion of Action 1 Alternatives

As stated above, the Council could select a different alternative for specifying management reference points and SDC for spiny lobster under each of the Puerto Rico, St. Thomas/St. John, or St. Croix FMPs. Alternative 1 would not change the OFL, ABC, and ACL as specified for spiny lobster in each island-based FMP. Under Alternative 1, however, the ACLs specified for Puerto Rico, St. Thomas/St. John, and St. Croix exceed the ABCs recommended by the SSC based on the outcomes of the SEDAR 57 stock assessments and Tier 3 of the ABC Control Rule.

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act specifies that catch levels cannot exceed the ABC recommended by the Council’s SSC. Thus, the Council could not select Alternative 1 as their preferred. Under the island-based FMPs, management reference points and SDC for spiny lobster were estimated, where data were available, using Tier 4a determinations in the Council’s ABC Control Rule. For Tier 4a, an OFL proxy (i.e., the sustainable yield level [SYL]) and ABC were estimated for spiny lobster, and then the Council reduced the ABC by a 5% management uncertainty buffer to set the spiny lobster ACL. Alternative 1 would not update spiny lobster management reference points and SDC following the accepted SEDAR 57 stock assessments, and thus would not be based on the best scientific information available. Alternatives 2 and 3 would set the OFLs, ABCs, and ACLs for spiny lobster in each island/island group using the best scientific information available (i.e., SEDAR 57 stock assessments and Tier 3 of the ABC Control Rule)

Under Alternative 2, the Council would establish the constant-catch ACL for spiny lobster for each island/island group based on the constant-catch ABC recommended by the SSC (Table 2.3). The constant-catch ACL would be reduced from the constant-catch ABC based on the Council’s level of management uncertainty. Sub-alternative 2a would have no management uncertainty and would set the ACL equal to the ABC, therefore resulting in the greatest catch allowed of the sub-alternatives (Table 2.4). Sub-alternatives 2b and 2c would apply a 5% and 10% reduction buffer (respectively) to the ABC to set the ACL, and would result in more conservative ACLs for the spiny lobster stocks. Pending Council and SSC review, the constant-catch OFL, ABC, and ACL values established for 2021-2023 would be used for 2024 and beyond until updated assessments and subsequent rulemaking are available and completed. Under Alternative 2, the constant-catch ACL would have greater benefits to the social and economic environment (i.e., consistency in management) but similar biological benefits to spiny lobster when compared to Alternative 3.

Under Alternative 3, the Council would establish ACLs that vary each year for spiny lobster for each island/island group based on the variable-catch ABCs recommended by the SSC (Table 2.2). Sub-alternatives 3a-3c reflect the same level of management uncertainty as Subalternatives 2a-2c Under Alternative 3, the ACLs for Puerto Rico would increase each year from 2021 to 2023, whereas the ACLs for St. Thomas/St. John and St. Croix would decrease

each year from 2021 to 2023 (Table 2.5) Pending Council and SSC review, the variable-catch OFL, ABC, and ACL established for 2023 would be used for 2024 and beyond until updated assessments and subsequent rulemaking are available and completed. Alternative 3, regardless of the sub-alternative selected, would generally result in the same amount of spiny lobster harvest allowed over the 2021-2023 period as under Alternative 2, but the changing ACLs may create confusion as to which ACL is applicable in that year.

Per Council request, an interim assessment to generate updated OFL projections using updated spiny lobster landings data would be run at or near the end of the 2021-2023 period. Pending results from that interim assessment, a subsequent framework amendment could be developed and implemented at that time to update the spiny lobster OFL(s), ABC(s), and ACL(s) for each island/island group. The interim assessment would not update the MSY or MSY proxy, the MFMT, or the MSST specified in the SEDAR 57 stock assessments.

Table 2.4. Constant-catch ACLs for spiny lobster for each island/island group based on the constant-catch ABC recommended by the SSC as reduced by the Council’s management uncertainty buffer (Alternative 2, Sub-alternatives 2a-2c).

Island/Island Group

Sub-alternative 2a (ACL = ABC)

Sub-alternative 2b (ACL = ABC * 0.95)

Sub-alternative 2c (ACL = ABC * 0.90)

Table 2.5. Variable-catch ACLs for spiny lobster for each island area for 2021-2023 based on the variable-catch ABCs recommended by the SSC as reduced by the Council’s management uncertainty buffer (Alternative 3, Sub-alternatives 3a-3c).

Island/Island Group Year

Sub-alternative 3a (ACL = ABC)

Sub-alternative 3b (ACL = ABC * 0.95)

Sub-alternative 3c (ACL = ABC * 0.90)

For both Alternative 2 and Alternative 3, in the years that spiny lobster stock assessments are completed, overfishing would occur if the fishing mortality rate (F) exceeds the MFMT (i.e., if

F/MFMT >1, then stock is undergoing overfishing). In years without spiny lobster stock assessments, overfishing would occur if the annual harvest exceeds the OFL (i.e., if landings/OFL >1, then stock is undergoing overfishing). For Alternative 1, overfishing would be determined as described in the FMPs (See Chapter 5, Section 5.13.4 in each FMP).

of Spiny Lobster

2.2 Action 2 – Landings Data to Trigger an Accountability Measure

Through Action 2, the Council would revise the sequence of years of landings data that would be compared to the ACL for triggering an AM for the spiny lobster stock under each FMP. The process for triggering an AM and the process for applying an AM would remain as described in each FMP:

Process for Triggering an AM for Spiny Lobster: An AM would be triggered if landings exceed the spiny lobster ACL, unless the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC) determines the overage occurred because data collection/monitoring improved rather than because catch increased.

Process for Applying an AM for Spiny Lobster: If an AM is triggered, NMFS will reduce the length of the spiny lobster fishing season the year following the overage determination by the amount necessary to ensure (to the greatest practicable extent) landings do not again exceed the ACL in the year of application. Any fishing season reduction would be applied from September 30 toward the beginning of the fishing year. If the required length of the fishing season reduction exceeds the time period of January 1 through September 30, any additional fishing season reduction will be applied from October 1 toward the end of the fishing year.

The Council could select a different alternative for each island/island group.

2.2.1 Proposed Alternatives for Action 2

Alternative 1. No Action. Use the year sequence of annual landings described in the Puerto Rico FMP, St. Thomas/St. John FMP, and St. Croix FMP to trigger an AM for spiny lobster, as follows:

An AM would be triggered if spiny lobster landings exceed the spiny lobster ACL, unless NMFS’ SEFSC determines the overage occurred because data collection/monitoring improved rather than because catch increased. Landings from the following years, in order, would be used to evaluate an exceedance of the spiny lobster ACL

(1) Landings from 2018

(2) Landings from 2019

(3) Two- year average of landings from 2019 and 2020

(4) Three- year average of landings from 2019, 2020, and 2021

(5) Thereafter, a progressive running 3- year average (2020-2022, 2021-2023, etc.).

The Regional Administrator in consultation with the Council may deviate from the specific time sequences based on data availability.

Alternative 2 Use a single year of spiny lobster landings, beginning with the most recent available year of landings, then a 2- year average of landings from that single year and the subsequent year, then a 3-year average of landings from those two years and the subsequent year, and thereafter a progressive running 3- year average to trigger an AM for spiny lobster under the FMP. The Regional Administrator in consultation with the Council may deviate from the specific time sequences based on the best scientific information available. When spiny lobster ACLs are re-specified, restart the sequence of years to trigger an AM as described above.

Sub-alternative 2a Use an arithmetic mean to calculate average landings. 10

Sub-alternative 2b. Use a geometric mean to calculate average landings. 11, 12

Alternative 3. Use the most recent, single year of spiny lobster landings to trigger an AM for spiny lobster under FMP. The Regional Administrator in consultation with the Council may deviate from the time sequence based on the best scientific information available.

2.2.2 Discussion of Action 2 Alternatives

As stated above, the Council could select a different alternative for specifying the years used to trigger an AM for spiny lobster under the Puerto Rico, St. Thomas/St. John, or St. Croix FMPs. Landings data for Puerto Rico and the USVI are generally available two years after the fishing year, thus, all AMs are applied post-season (Table 2.6).

Table 2.6. Illustration of how the Action 2 alternatives would compare available landings to the spiny lobster ACL in a given year, assuming that the island-based FMPs and the Spiny Lobster Amendment are both implemented in 2021.

Fishing

Year

Year When Landings Data Are Available*

Year of Landings

Data Used to Trigger an AM Under Alternative 1

Year of Landings

Data Used to Trigger an AM Under Alternative 2

Year of Landings

Data Used to Trigger an AM Under Alternative 3 2021

(2018)

(2019) 2022

2023 2021

2024** 2022

year (2019) Two-year average (2019-2020)

Two-year average (2019-2020)

year (2020)

Three-year average (2019-2021) Single year (2021)

Three-year average (2019-2021) Single year (2022) Single year (2022)

10 The arithmetic mean is calculated by adding the values of a set of numbers and then dividing the sum by the number of values in the set.

11 The geometric mean is calculated by multiplying the values of a set of numbers and then taking the nth root of the product, where n is equal to the number of values in the set.

12 If the Council considers Alternative 2, Sub-alternative 2b (geometric mean), the Council can request the SSC discuss using this alternative approach to calculating averages for purposes of monitoring to the spiny lobster ACLs, and provide guidance where applicable.

of Spiny Lobster

Fishing Year

Year When Landings Data Are Available*

2025 2023

Year of Landings

Data Used to Trigger an AM Under Alternative 1

Three-year average (2020-2022)

Year of Landings

Data Used to Trigger an AM Under Alternative 2

Two-year average (2022-2023)

Year of Landings

Data Used to Trigger an AM Under Alternative 3

Single year (2023)

* For the U.S. Caribbean region, landings data are generally available two years after when the fishing occurred (i.e., the fishing year). Data availability may be additionally delayed by rare events such as hurricanes.

** Assuming that updated spiny lobster stock assessments (i.e., revised OFLs, ABCs, and ACLs) and subsequent rulemaking are available and completed in 2024.

Under Alternative 1 (no action), the Council would not change the spiny AM specified in each of the island-based FMPs. Year 2018 would be the first year of landings data used to monitor to the spiny lobster ACLs, unless the Regional Administrator in consultation with the Council chose to deviate from those specific year sequences based on data availability. 13 This alternative would use a stepwise approach (single year, subsequent single year, 2- year average, 3- year average) to compare landings to the spiny lobster ACLs. This alternative would not allow for an automatic reset of that stepwise approach of comparing landings to the ACLs when stock assessments and subsequent rulemaking result in new ACLs. If new ACLs were specified, then future amendments would need to include an action to reset the year sequence used, if so desired. Under the constant-catch approach, the ACLs would be re-specified following updated assessments, and under the variable-catch approach, the ACLs would change every year.

Alternative 2 would be similar to Alternative 1, but the stepwise approach of comparing landings to the ACL under Alternative 2 would not use a second single year of landings. Alternative 2 would allow the Council to reset the stepwise sequence of years when new ACLs for the spiny lobster stocks are specified (e.g., following an updated stock assessment). Alternative 2 also modifies the language for when the Regional Administrator, in consultation with the Council, can deviate from the year sequences selected in the stepwise approach, basing the deviation on the best scientific information available. This modification expands the instances in which a year of landings data may be omitted. For instance, under both Alternative 1 and Alternative 2, a year of landings data may be omitted from the year sequence used to compare to the ACL if the complete year of data was not available due to data-related disruptions resulting from a hurricane. However, under Alternative 2, the Regional Administrator could also omit a year of landings data from the ACL monitoring process if the data stream was considered unreliable and does not represent the best scientific information available. For

13 Data availability takes into account disruptions in data streams from events such as hurricanes and delays that may occur from catch report submissions and data validation processes.

example, if the expansion factors used to adjust the reported landings were determined to be over- or under- inflated, the Regional Administrator could omit that information 14

Alternative 2 includes options for the Council to select their preferred method for calculating average landings. Sub-alternative 2a would use an arithmetic mean to calculate the average landings to which the ACL would be compared, while Sub-alternative 2b would use a geometric mean to calculate the average landings. The geometric mean differs from the arithmetic mean in how it is calculated (see example below) and considers how landings in one year may be related to the landings in the following year.

As an example, consider three years of hypothetical landings data in which one year’s landings were much greater than the landings in the other two years:

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3

The arithmetic mean of these values would be 400,000 (300,000 + 300,000 + 600,000 / 3 = 400,000) and the geometric mean would be 377,976 (cube root of 300,000 x 300,000 x 600,000 = 377,976). Using a geometric mean generally returns a more conservative estimate (i.e., a lower value), and as such, may prevent an AM from being triggered due to unusually high landings that might occur in one year when compared to using the arithmetic mean

If the Council chooses the variable-catch approach for setting ACLs under Action 1, in which the ACLs for 2021-2023 would change from year to year, Alternative 2 would compare the average landings to the average ACLs as applicable to the stepwise sequence (e.g., the 2- year average landings would be compared to average ACL in place during those 2 years). This process would use the same method for averaging the landings data (arithmetic mean or geometric mean) as selected in Sub-alternatives 2a or 2b. For example, if Sub-alternative 2b was selected, then the geometric mean of the applicable year of annual landings from the stepwise approach would be compared to the geometric mean of the corresponding ACLs.

Alternative 3 does not use a stepwise approach to comparing landings to the spiny lobster ACL, and instead compares the most recent, single year of available landings to the ACL in place during that landings year. Alternative 3 would be the simplest approach to ACL monitoring, regardless of which ACL-setting approach was selected in Action 1. In addition, under Alternative 3, if the level of spiny lobster harvest were higher than expected in a given year, resulting in an ACL overage, that year of high landings would only be used once in determining

14 Expansion factors are used in Puerto Rico to calculate total commercial landings from partial commercial landings data and address the non- and misreporting issues. Expansion factors are not used in USVI commercial landings data.

if an AM was necessary Under Alternatives 1 and 2, which both include a 3-year average of landings under the stepwise approach, a year with high landings could be included for comparison to the ACL for up to three times. As a result, a fishing season reduction could be triggered over multiple fishing seasons for the one instance of high landings. However, using a 3-year average of landings to compare to the ACL could dampen any variability in landings that may occur. Alternative 3 includes the same clause that the Regional Administrator, in consultation with the Council, can deviate from the year of landings data used to monitor to the spiny lobster ACL based on the best scientific information available. Under this alternative, if the most recent year of data was determined to be incomplete or inaccurate or otherwise did not reflect the best scientific information available, then the previous year of landings data that was considered to be the best scientific information available would be compared to the spiny lobster ACL.

3. References

CFMC (Caribbean Fishery Management Council). 1981. Fishery management plan, final environmental impact statement, and regulatory impact review for the spiny lobster fishery of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Caribbean Fishery Management Council, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

CFMC (Caribbean Fishery Management Council). 2011a. Amendment 2 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Queen Conch Fishery of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands and Amendment 5 to the Reef Fish Fishery Management Plan of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Caribbean Fishery Management Council, San Juan, Puerto Rico. September 22, 2011. 523 pp + Appendices.

CFMC (Caribbean Fishery Management Council). 2011b. Comprehensive Annual Catch Limit (ACL) Amendment for the Fishery Management Plans of the U.S. Caribbean. Caribbean Fishery Management Council, San Juan, Puerto Rico. 407 pp.

CFMC (Caribbean Fishery Management Council). 2019a Comprehensive Fishery Management Plan for the Puerto Rico Exclusive Economic Zone, environmental assessment, regulatory impact review, and fishery impact statement. Caribbean Fishery Management Council, San Juan, Puerto Rico. 637 pp.

CFMC (Caribbean Fishery Management Council). 2019b. Comprehensive Fishery Management Plan for the St. Thomas/ St. John Exclusive Economic Zone, environmental assessment, regulatory impact review, and fishery impact statement. Caribbean Fishery Management Council, San Juan, Puerto Rico. 507 pp.

CFMC (Caribbean Fishery Management Council). 2019c. Comprehensive Fishery Management Plan for the St. Croix Exclusive Economic Zone, environmental assessment, regulatory impact review, and fishery impact statement. Caribbean Fishery Management Council, San Juan, Puerto Rico. 509 pp.

SEDAR 57. 2019. Stock Assessment Report U.S. Caribbean Spiny Lobster Southeast Data, Assessment, and Review. North Charleston, South Carolina. https://sedarweb.org/sedar-57

Appendix A. Island-based Fishery Management Plans

Acceptable Biological Catch (ABC) Control Rule

The ABC control rule contained in each island-based fishery management plan (FMP) would replace the current ABC control rules included in the 2010 Caribbean Annual Catch Limit (ACL) Amendment (CFMC 2011a) and 2011 Caribbean ACL Amendment (CFMC 2011b), as applicable. The island-based FMPs would provide a complete revision of reference points and status determination criteria (SDC) for stocks and stock complexes included for management following a three-step process:

Step 1 adopts and applies a newly devised, 4-tiered, ABC control rule to specify SDC and ABC recommendations depending on differing levels of data availability. Beginning with Tier 4 and moving up tier levels (lower tier numbers), successful application of each tier requires an increasing amount of information. Tier 4 is applicable in situations where an accepted quantitative assessment is not available, which is the present case for all stocks proposed for management in the Puerto Rico, St. Thomas and St. John, and St. Croix FMPs. In Tier 4, the most data-limited of the options, a maximum sustainable yield (MSY) proxy, maximum fishing mortality threshold, and minimum stock size threshold are defined with respect to assumptions about fishing mortality rate and biomass, but cannot be quantified due to data limitations. In addition, Tier 4 introduces a new reference point, the sustainable yield level (SYL). The SYL is a level of landings that can be sustained over the long term. SYL is intended to be used when quantitative guidance with which to set MSY or an MSY proxy is not available. The SYL would serve as a proxy for the overfishing limit and a minimum estimate of MSY where MSY is greater than or equal to SYL.

Step 2 establishes a proxy to use when FMSY cannot be determined, as in Tier 4 of the ABC control rule. For all three island management areas, the Council established a proxy equal to 30% of the maximum spawning potential of a stock under conditions of no fishing mortality (F30%SPR).

Step 3 applies a reduction factor, reflecting the Council's estimate of management uncertainty, to the recommended ABC for each stock/stock complex to specify the ACL. The optimum yield would be set equal to the ACL for each stock/stock complex.

The tiered approached to the ABC control rule better positions the Council to take advantage of future improvements in data and analytical methodologies. Revising the reference points and SDC based on recent landings data ensures to the greatest extent practicable that an appropriate period of stable and sustainable landings is identified and used for setting management reference points and SDC.

Strategic Planning Update

Caribbean Fishery Management Council

December 8, 2020

Where are we??

• March-April 2020: Survey launch and extension

• June 2020: Updates to DAPs, OEAP, Council

• July 2020: Development of alternative/ virtual stakeholder input approach

• August-September 2020: OEAP, DAPs, Council participate in virtual input sessions; online comment form development

• October-November 2020: Online comment form launch

• November-December 2020: Stakeholder Input Report

Photo: NOAA

Stakeholder and Public Input Discussion Themes

Resource Health

Social, Cultural & Economic Issues

Communication & Outreach

Management &

Operational Issues

RESOURCE HEALTH ISSUES

RESOURCE HEALTH ISSUES

SOCIAL, CULTURAL, AND ECONOMIC ISSUES

Closed seasons & stock assessments for affected species; evaluation of season/area closures

Increasing costs

Competition with foreign fisherment

Recreational and commercial user conflicts

Displacement of fishing communities

Ability to support a family

Excess gear

Excess fishing

SOCIAL, CULTURAL, AND ECONOMIC ISSUES

Closed seasons & stock assessments for affected species; evaluation of season/area closures

Increasing costs

Competition with foreign fisherment

Recreational and commercial user conflicts

Displacement of fishing communities

Ability to support a family

Communication and Outreach

(as modified by DAP input)

• Frequency of communication (alerts/reminders of scoping meetings and council meetings)

• Variety of tools used in communication (e.g. email, website, social media, paper, text message alerts)

• Educational resources (e.g. science & stock assessment, business planning, restaurant choices, etc.; include other jurisdictions/agencies such U.S. Coast Guard, National Park Service, etc. that have marine interests)

• Improving general public awareness of fisheries issues

• Expand communications to other groups (divers, dive shop owners, etc.)

• Regular in-person outreach workshops on important topics

• Clarity and simplicity of presentations

• Expand role of fishery liaisons beyond participation on OEAP to increase liaison understanding of fishery issues, and to increase public understanding of the role of liaisons (e.g. have liaisons give presentation of each island’s activities at Council meetings)

Communication and Outreach

• ALL topics are important

• More communication and outreach is needed (generally & for specific groups/areas)

• Variety of communication tools & consideration of generational preferences

• Improving general public awareness of fisheries issues

• Clarity/simplicity of presentations & communications

• In-person outreach & expansion of liaison roles

Online Public Comment Form

• Additional public input opportunity regarding issues of importance under four themes

• Open-ended questions: “Given your experience and knowledge what do you feel are the most important issues impacting [THEME AREA]?”

• One form for each district, in Spanish and English

• Available October 5 - November 9, 2020

• A total of 10 respondents (Puerto Rico form only)

Online Public Comment Form

Resource Health

• Coastal development, pollution, habitat loss/ destruction (5)

• Climate change, harvest of juvenile fish, lack of enforcement presence

• Rotation of seasonal area closures

Social, Cultural & Economic Concerns

• Illegal & unlicensed fishing, failure to report (6)

• Lack of education & knowledge (2)

• Rising costs of seafood

• Lack of infrastructure

• Aging of fishermen, lack of young entrants

Online Public Comment Form

Issues Communication & Outreach

• Enforcement of existing regulations, compatibility (3)

• Better education for fishers & public (3)

• Difficulties & delays in licensing process (2)

• Limits on possession & allowable fishing areas, accurate commercial & recreational catch data Management & Operational

• Electronic tools, social media, webinars, texts, videos (3)

• Paper, print media, TV (2)

• In-person outreach, roundtables (2)

• Stakeholder orientation, sector-specific communication, boat-friendly materials

Management Partner Outreach

Priorities & Mutual Objectives

• Improving data collection and data management: commercial and recreational catch reporting, social and economic data

• Strengthening relationships: stakeholder buy-in, community involvement and outreach, federal-territorial partnerships

• Evaluating effectiveness of existing management approaches

• Implementation of ecosystem-based approaches to management

• Regulatory collaboration and consistency

• Scientific and assessment capacity and resources

Management Partner Outreach

Partnerships & Process

• Habitat protection initiatives and Essential Fish Habitat designations

• Maintaining Caribbean-wide partnerships (WECAFC)

• Enhancing communication and information exchange among agencies to improve mutual awareness of U.S. Caribbean activities

• Consistent public messaging among management partners (e.g., importance of recreational data collection)

Next Steps

• Early 2021: Draft strategic plan development

• Review by DAPs, OEAP, Council

• Public comment on draft Strategic Plan

• Late summer 2021: Final Strategic Plan

Caribbean

Fishery Management Council

Strategic Plan Stakeholder Input Report

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

DRAFT December 2020

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

INTRODUCTION

In August 2019, the Caribbean Fishery Management Council (Council) elected to move forward with development of a five-year strategic plan beginning in January 2020. The goal of the plan is to guide the Council’s activities and decisions, and provide for effective and efficient use of its resources.

To inform the development of priorities for the strategic plan framework, the Council solicited input from its stakeholders. This feedback is a critical component of building a successful strategic plan. The Council has a diverse constituency with a wide range of interests, priorities, and needs that is distributed across three unique island platforms.

The Council used the following methods to solicit feedback on future priorities:

• Facilitated virtual discussion with the Council and its District Advisory Panels

• An online comment form

• Management partner outreach

The feedback received from each of these approaches are detailed in separate sections of the report and reflect a range of perspectives that is impacted by factors such as geography, as well as specific needs and interests.

FACILITATED VIRTUAL SESSIONS

Each of the Council’s District Advisory Panels (DAPs) provided feedback and recommendations for future priorities across four themes: Resource Health; Social, Cultural, and Economic Issues; Management and Operational Issues; and Communication and Outreach. The Council’s Outreach and Education Advisory Panel (OEAP) provided input only on topics within the Communication and Outreach theme. The Council also provided feedback on priorities across all four themes after its advisory panels met.

THEME: RESOURCE HEALTH

The following issues were reviewed and considered by the DAPs and the Council:

• Invasive species

• Climate change

• Erosion and sedimentation

• Coastal development

• Natural disasters

• Habitat loss/destruction and habitat creation/rehabilitation

• Enforcement

• Pollution

• Bycatch and discard mortality

• Abundance of bait fish/forage

• Lack of biological or ecosystem information, data mining

• Overfishing

• Illegal fishing

Individual members of the DAPs and the Council were asked to select up five priority issues within this theme. Tabulation of individual selections resulted in the following top five priorities for each body: Resource Health Issues

Invasive

loss/destruction & creation/rehabilitation

Bycatch and discard mortality

Abundance of baitfish/forage

THEME: SOCIAL, CULTURAL, AND ECONOMIC ISSUES

Under this theme, the following issues were reviewed and considered by the Council and the DAPs:

• Closed seasons & stock assessments for impacted species and evaluation of area/season closures

• Increasing costs

• Competition with foreign fishermen

• Recreational and commercial user conflicts

• Displacement of fishing communities

• Ability to support a family

• Illegal/unlicensed commercial fishers

• Lack of new entrants into the fishery

• Lack of social & economic data

• Excess gear

• Market instability (new ways to virtually advertise product, e.g., via social media, and prioritizing locally caught seafood

• Infrastructure needs (landing and market sites)

• Inadequate enforcement

• Excess fishing capacity

After reviewing and discussing the topics, individual DAP and Council members provided selections for up to five priority issues under this theme. Tabulation of responses resulted in the following five priority areas:

Social, Cultural, and Economic Issues

Closed seasons & stock assessments for impacted species and evaluation of closed areas/seasons

Increasing costs

Competition with foreign fishermen

Recreational and commercial user conflicts

Displacement of fishing communities

Ability to support a family

Illegal/unlicensed commercial fishers

Lack of new entrants into the fishery

Lack of social and economic data

Excess gear

Market instability (new ways to virtually advertise product, prioritizing locally caught seafood)

Infrastructure needs (landing and marketing sites)

Inadequate enforcement

Excess fishing capacity

THEME: MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONAL ISSUES

The following Management and Operational Issues were reviewed by the DAPs and the Council:

• Accurate/timely commercial & recreational catch data (e.g., mandatory reporting for all sectors)

• Enforcement of existing regulations

• Fisher involvement in data collection

• Regulatory consistency (federal & territorial, where such compatibility is feasible)

• Gear limits

• Cost-effective data collection technology

• Balancing commercial & recreational concerns

• Incorporation of climate change into management

• Federal permit program

• Clear management objectives

• Bycatch/regulatory discards

• Territorial licensing requirements (e.g., consider recreational licensing requirement to improve reporting)

After deliberation on the above topics, individual DAP members and Council members provided their recommendations for up to five issues. Responses were summarized, resulting in the following selections: Management and

Operational Issues

& recreational catch

Regulatory consistency (federal & territorial, where such compatibility is feasible)

Clear management objectives

Bycatch/regulatory discards Gear limits

Incorporation of climate change into management

Federal permit program

Territorial licensing requirements (e.g., consider recreational licensing requirement to improve reporting)

THEME: COMMUNICATION AND OUTREACH

The OEAP reviewed and prioritized a list of six topics under this theme and was asked to provide additional comments and suggestions. Subsequently, the DAPs reviewed the list of Communication and Outreach issues, and added two additional topics: Expand outreach efforts to other groups (e.g., dive groups, etc.); Expand the role of fishery liaisons beyond participation in the OEAP to increase their knowledge of fisheries issues. The DAPs and the Council were not asked to select priorities under this theme, but rather to provide comments and suggestions. The final list of topics, including additions, is below:

• Frequency of communication (alerts/reminders of scoping meetings and Council meetings)

• Variety of tools used in communication (e.g., email, website, social media, paper, text message alerts)

• Educational resources (e.g., science & stock assessment, business planning, restaurant choices, etc.; include other jurisdictions/agencies such as U.S. Coast Guard, National Park Service, etc. that have marine interests).

• Improving general public awareness of fisheries issues

• Expand communications to other groups (divers, dive shop owners, etc.)

• Regular in-person outreach workshops on important topics

• Clarity and simplicity of presentations

• Expand role of fishery liaisons beyond participation in OEAP to increase liaison understanding of fishery issues, and to increase public understanding of the role of liaisons (e.g., have liaisons give presentation of each island’s activities at Council meetings).

Detailed input was received from the OEAP, the DAPs and the Council and is contained in the full report, but a consolidated list of areas receiving significant input from all bodies is below:

• All communication and outreach topics are important, and in general, there is always a need for more resources to ensure that the Council’s diverse constituencies are receiving the necessary information to improve their knowledge of the process and issues.

• The variety of communication tools is a constantly evolving process that involves identifying audiences and determining what their communication preferences are. This should include consideration of generational preferences, such as the use of electronic tools and social media vs. paper and traditional media (e.g., newspaper and radio).

• Improving general public awareness of fisheries issues is important to help build understanding of and support for sustainable local fisheries and fishing communities, as well as increase knowledge of the relationships between non-fishing activities and the resource.

• Improving the clarity and simplicity of presentations is paramount to engaging more fishers and the public in the Council process. Many feel embarrassed by their lack of knowledge and/or difficulty comprehending the complex issues that the Council addresses.

• Continued in-person outreach and expansion of the roles of fishery liaison officers is necessary to ensuring that fishers understand the issues and that their feedback is incorporated into the process.

ONLINE COMMENT FORM

Online comment forms specific to each of the Council’s three districts provided another opportunity for public input on the four themes discussed by the OEAP, DAPs, and the Council. Only ten responses were received through the Puerto Rico comment form. Priorities identified by the majority of respondents are noted below:

• Coastal development, pollution, habitat loss and destruction.

• Illegal and unlicensed fishing, failure to report catches.

• General lack of education and knowledge about fishery resources and regulations.

• Failure to enforce existing regulations, regulatory compatibility.

• Additional outreach and education for fishers and the public.

• Improvements in the territorial licensing process.

• Use of a diverse array of communication tools that includes electronic/online resources (e.g., social media) as well as traditional media.

MANAGEMENT PARTNER OUTREACH

The Council’s management partners were solicited for suggestions and recommendations regarding priorities and mutual objectives for consideration in the strategic plan. The following are broad recommendations received across topic areas:

• Support for improving data collection and data management, including commercial and recreational catch reporting, social and economic data.

• Continued strengthening of relationships with stakeholders and territorial as well as community involvement and outreach.

• Evaluating the effectiveness of existing management approaches to determine if they are meeting management objectives.

• Continued implementation of ecosystem-based approaches to management.

• Encouraging regulatory collaboration and consistency.

• Support for increased scientific and assessment capacity and resources.

• Enhancing communication and information exchange among agencies to improve mutual awareness of U.S. Caribbean activities

• Encouraging consistent public messaging among management partners on topics of mutual interest.

Modifications to the Buoy Gear Definition for the Harvest of Managed Reef Fish in Federal Waters of Puerto Rico, St. Croix, and St. Thomas/St. John

Draft Options Paper

For a Generic Amendment to the Comprehensive Fishery Management Plans for Puerto Rico, St. Thomas/St. John, and St. Croix

November 2020

1. Background

At the 170th Caribbean Fishery Management Council (Council) regular meeting in August 2020, the Council requested staff begin work on an amendment to each of the Puerto Rico, St. Thomas/St. John, and St. Croix fishery management plans (FMP) (island-based FMPs), once implemented, that would allow for the use of a specific hook and line gear type currently used to fish commercially for deep water reef fish in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI). At the same meeting, the Council also tasked staff to consider whether gill and trammel nets or any other applicable gear should be included as authorized gear types when fishing for certain species managed under each of the island-based FMPs. This Options Paper pertains only to the use of specific hook and line gear (buoy gear) and lists potential options to include and evaluate in an amendment to each of the island-based FMPs to consider changes to the definition of buoy gear used to fish for managed reef fish. Consideration of other gear types will be addressed in the near future through a separate amendment to the island-based FMPs.

The commercial Longline/Hook and Line Fishery for managed reef fish in each of the Puerto Rico, St. Thomas/St. John, and St. Croix FMPs includes longline and hook and line (50 CFR 600.725(V) gear table) (Table 1.1). Appendix A lists the species included under the Reef Fish category of each the island-based FMPs. Deep-water snappers (e.g., queen snapper, cardinal snapper) are currently included for management under this category. The island-based FMPs were approved by the Secretary of Commerce on September 22, 2020 and regulations to implement the plans are under development. The island-based FMPs are expected to be in effect in 2021.

Table 1.1. Authorized gear types for the commercial sector of the Reef Fish Fishery in each of the island-based FMPs.

Reef Fish Fishery

Gear Type

Commercial Longline/hook and line fishery Longline, hook and line

Commercial Trap/pot fishery Trap, pot

Other commercial fishery Spear

*The gear table will be updated in the regulations implemented the island-based FMPs.

Federal regulations at 50 CFR Part 622.2 define hook and line as automatic reel, bandit gear, buoy gear, handline, longline, and rod and reel. Hook and line gear types are defined as follows:

Automatic reel means a reel that remains attached to a vessel when in use from which a line and attached hook(s) are deployed. The line is payed out from and retrieved on the reel electrically or hydraulically.

Bandit gear means a rod and reel that remain attached to a vessel when in use from which a line and attached hook(s) are deployed. The line is payed out from and retrieved on the reel manually, electrically, or hydraulically.

Buoy gear means fishing gear that fishes vertically in the water column that consists of a single drop line suspended from a float, from which no more than 10 hooks can be connected between the buoy and the terminal end, and the terminal end contains a weight that is no more than 10 lb (4.5 kg). The drop line can be rope (hemp, manila, cotton or other natural fibers; nylon, polypropylene, spectra or other synthetic material) or monofilament, but must not be cable or wire. The gear is free-floating and not connected to other gear or the vessel. The drop line must be no greater than 2 times the depth of the water being fished. All hooks must be attached to the drop line no more than 30 ft (9.1 m) from the weighted terminal end. These hooks may be attached directly to the drop line; attached as snoods (defined as an offshoot line that is directly spliced, tied or otherwise connected to the drop line), where each snood has a single terminal hook; or as gangions (defined as an offshoot line connected to the drop line with some type of detachable clip), where each gangion has a single terminal hook.

Handline means a line with attached hook(s) that is tended directly by hand.

Longline means a line that is deployed horizontally to which gangions and hooks are attached. A longline may be a bottom longline, i.e., designed for use on the bottom, or a pelagic longline, i.e., designed for use off the bottom. The longline hauler may be manually, electrically, or hydraulically operated.

Rod and reel means a rod and reel unit that is not attached to a vessel, or, if attached, is readily removable, from which a line and attached hook(s) are deployed. The line is payed out from and retrieved on the reel manually, electrically, or hydraulically.

1.1 Issue to be addressed in a proposed amendment to the island-based FMPs

In Puerto Rico and the USVI, commercial fishermen harvesting deep-water snappers (e.g., queen and cardinal snappers) have traditionally used a gear type locally known as “cala con boya” in

Puerto Rico and as “deep-drop buoy gear” in the USVI. Although this locally used commercial fishing gear type is very similar to the buoy gear defined in federal regulations applicable to Caribbean fisheries described above, it differs in the number of hooks that are allowed to be used with the gear. The buoy gear type defined in 50 CFR Part 622.2 cannot contain more than 10 hooks connected between the buoy and the terminal end, while the local deep-water reef fish buoy gear typically can contain up to 25 hooks connected between the buoy and the terminal end. The use of any gear not listed as authorized for the fishery is prohibited (50 CFR 600.725(v)). Therefore, this gear type cannot be used by fishermen participating in the commercial reef fish fishery until it is added as an allowable gear type under the island-based FMPs.

Purpose and Need (DRAFT)

The purpose of this amendment is to modify the definition of buoy gear as it applies to the commercial sector of the longline/hook and line fishery for managed reef fish in each of the island-based FMPs to allow for the use of a specific buoy gear type traditionally used in the U.S. Caribbean to fish for deep-water fish (e.g. snappers).

The need is to ensure that commercial fishermen can use the gear type traditionally used to harvest deep-water reef fish in the U.S. Caribbean

2. Action and Potential Options

A different option can be selected for each island management area

Option 1 (No action). The current gear types authorized under the commercial longline/hook and line fishery for managed reef fish in the FMP: automatic reel, bandit gear, buoy gear, handline, longline, and rod and reel would remain as specified in 50 CFR Part 622. The current definition of buoy gear would be retained.

- Under this option, no changes would be made to the list of allowable gear types or how they are defined under the commercial longline/hook and line fishery for managed reef fish. The gear type currently used in Puerto Rico and the USVI to fish for deep water reef fish (snappers) would continue to not be allowed in federal waters to harvest managed reef fish. Fishermen would need to make arrangements to fish under the current definition, which would require them to reduce the number of hooks used to 10

Option 2. Retain the current gear types authorized under the commercial longline/hook and line fishery for managed reef fish in the FMP: automatic reel, bandit gear, buoy gear, handline, longline, and rod and reel. Modify the definition of buoy gear as it applies to the longline/hook and line fishery for managed reef fish to allow the use of up to 25 hooks connected between the buoy and the terminal end.

- Similar to Option 1, this option would not change the list of allowable gear types under the commercial longline/hook and line fishery for managed reef fish, but would modify the definition of buoy gear under this fishery so that it can include the configuration of the buoy gear type used by fishermen in Puerto Rico and the USVI to harvest deep-water fish (snappers) in both territorial and federal waters.

- The applicable regulations could include a specific definition, which would be the same definition of buoy gear but with a maximum of 25 hooks instead of a maximum of 10 hooks.

- In the future, if a federal permit is desired, the buoy gear for managed Caribbean reef fish could be re-defined to be specific to deep water snappers, and the deep water snapper category would be defined to mean specific species.

Option 3. If needed, same as Option 2 but proposing the use of less # of hooks.

- An option 3 may not be necessary as the 25 hooks proposed in Option 2 are a max, the use of less hooks could be evaluated under Option 2.

3. References

CFMC (Caribbean Fishery Management Council). 1985. Fishery management plan, final environmental impact statement, and draft regulatory impact review for the shallow-water reef fish fishery of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Caribbean Fishery Management Council, San Juan, Puerto Rico. 69pp. + Appendices.

CFMC (Caribbean Fishery Management Council). 2019a Comprehensive Fishery Management Plan for the Puerto Rico Exclusive Economic Zone, environmental assessment, regulatory impact review, and fishery impact statement. Caribbean Fishery Management Council, San Juan, Puerto Rico. 637 pp.

CFMC (Caribbean Fishery Management Council). 2019b Comprehensive Fishery Management Plan for the St. Thomas/ St. John Exclusive Economic Zone, environmental assessment, regulatory impact review, and fishery impact statement. Caribbean Fishery Management Council, San Juan, Puerto Rico. 507 pp.

CFMC (Caribbean Fishery Management Council). 2019c Comprehensive Fishery Management Plan for the St. Croix Exclusive Economic Zone, environmental assessment, regulatory impact review, and fishery impact statement. Caribbean Fishery Management Council, San Juan, Puerto Rico. 509 pp.

CFMC. 2020a. 170th Meeting Verbatim Transcripts. August 11-12, 2020. https://caribbeanfmc.com/meetings/CFMC%20MEETINGS/170_CFMC_Regular_Virtual_Meeti ng_August_2020/170th_CFMC_Verbatim_Transcripts_August_2020.pdf

CFMC. 2020b. After the meeting documents, Font translated letter. 170th Caribbean Fishery Management Council Regular Meeting. August 11-12, 2020. https://caribbeanfmc.com/After_the_Meeting_Documents/170_After_the_Meet_Docs/Traduccio n_carta_pescador_ago2020.pdf

Appendix A.

List of Managed Reef Fish Included in

of the Island-based FMPs

St. Croix Reef Fish

• Snappers: black, blackfin, silk, vermilion, queen, lane, gray, mutton, schoolmaster, yellowtail

• Groupers: Nassau, goliath, graysby, coney, red hind, rock hind, black, red, tiger, yellowfin, misty

• Parrotfishes: blue, midnight, rainbow, queen, princess, redtail, stoplight, redband, striped, redfin

• Surgeonfishes: blue tang, ocean surgeonfish, doctorfish

• Triggerfishes: queen

• Angelfishes: queen, grey, French

• Grunts: white grunt, bluestriped

• Squirrelfish: longspine squirrelfish

St. Thomas/St John Reef Fish

• Snappers: black, blackfin, silk, vermilion, queen, lane, mutton, yellowtail

• Groupers: Nassau, goliath, coney, red hind, black, red, tiger, yellowfin, yellowmouth*, yellowedge, misty

• Parrotfishes: blue, midnight, rainbow, queen, princess, redtail, stoplight, redband, striped, redfin

• Surgeonfishes: blue tang, ocean surgeonfish, doctorfish

• Triggerfishes: queen

• Wrasses: hogfish

• Angelfishes: queen, grey, French

• Grunts: white grunt, bluestriped, margate

• Jacks: Blue runner

• Porgies: jolthead, saucereye, sheepshead, sea bream

* New to management

Puerto Rico Reef Fish

• Snappers: black, blackfin, silk, vermilion, wenchman, cardinal, queen, lane, mutton, dog, schoolmaster, yellowtail, cubera*

• Groupers: Nassau, goliath, coney, graysby, black, red, tiger, yellowfin, yellowmouth*, yellowedge, misty, red hind, rock hind

• Parrotfishes: blue, midnight, rainbow, queen, princess, redtail, stoplight, redband, striped

• Surgeonfishes: blue tang, ocean surgeonfish, doctorfish

• Triggerfishes: ocean, queen, gray*

• Wrasses: hogfish, puddingwife, Spanish hogfish

• Angelfishes: queen, grey, French

• Grunts: white grunt

• Jacks: crevalle jack*, African pompano*, rainbow runner* * New to management

Appendix B. History of Management

Prior to the development of the island-based FMPs, reef fish in the U.S. Caribbean were managed under the Reef Fish FMP (CMFC 1985), as amended. The history of management actions taken to date under the Reef Fish FMP are summarized in Appendix C.1 of each the island-based FMPs.

On June 26, 2020, a Notice of Availability (NOA; 85 FR 38350) was published requesting comments on the three island-based FMPs. The Puerto Rico FMP (CFMC 2019a), the St. Thomas and St. John FMP (CFMC 2019b), and the St. Croix FMP (CFMC 2019c), in combination, would replace the existing U.S. Caribbean-wide FMPs. Each island-based FMP would establish management measures for the EEZ around the respective island and would retain most of the current management measures established under the U.S. Caribbean-wide FMPs that apply to the respective island management area (e.g., seasonal and area closures, minimum size limits, recreational bag limits). In addition, each island-based FMP would revise other management measures such as the species included for federal management, ACLs, and accountability measures.

On September 22, 2020, the National Marine Fisheries Service approved each of the islandbased FMPs. Regulations to implement the island-based FMP are under development.

OutreachandEducation AdvisoryPanel(OEAP) REPORTTOTHECOUNCIL

172ndCFMCRegularMeeting

GoToMeeting December8-9,2020

Meetingsattended

• September11,2020:NOAACaribbean SteeringCommittee

• September23,2020:Webinaron IslandBasedFisheryManagement PlanstoNOAAintheCaribbean

• September30,2020:OEAPMeeting

• October7,2020:DAPs,OEAPand Liaisons;FEP/TAP;CFMCStrategic Plan–Dr.MichelleDuval

• October15, 2020:USVIMAPs outreachmaterials,UPRSGand CariCoos

• October21, 2020:FEP–Dr.Michelle Duvaltodiscussstakeholder’s engagement:LenFestgroupandthe PewCharitableTrust.

• October22,2020:WilsonSantiago/PR Liaison,CristinaOlánPEPCOcontents

• November5,2020:Webinarfor TouristsGuide-PRTC

SUSTAINABLESEAFOODCONSUMPTION

WebinarforTouristGuidesthroughthe PRTourismCompany

CollaborationwithTheNatureConservancy.

•

SustainableSeafoodConsumption Campaign…proposedproducts

• Shortvideosonhomecookingofunderutilizedspecies–Jannette RamosandCristinaOlán.

• Developa Guidetoanalyzeunderutilizedspeciesforeducational purposes.Itwillhelpfishermen,fisheriesmanagers,educatorsand thegeneralpublictounderstandwhatisanunderutilizedspeciesand theappropriateconsiderationswhenrecommendingits consumption.

MarineFisheriesEcosystemofPuertoRicoand theU S VirginIslands

• Newshortvideoson Habitatsof ParticularConcern basedonthe videosonEssentialFishHabitats.

• Developmentofaudiovisual materialsfor4Hgroups requestedbyNelsonCrespo.

LifeCyclePostersofImportantspecies

Lifecycleofthe

Queenconch

Workingonnewposters

• Nassaugrouper(Epinephelus striatus) and Muttonsnapper (Lutjanusanalis)spanish, englishandfrenchversions

•Biologicalaspects:lifecycle, preys,predators,spawning aggregationsseasons

•ForinternationalCampaigns onthesespeciesthatare importantfortheUSCaribbean CFMCoutreach.

OutreachmaterialsonProtectedMarine AreasintheUSVI

• CollaborativeProjectwith CariCoos/UPRSeaGrant includes

• Factsheet,Poster,stickers,wallet cardswithinformationand regulationsonProtectedareas (GrammanikBank,MCD,Parks andMonuments)

• Shortvideosandsocialmedia posts

SocialMedia

• CristinaOlán,presentation

RecommendationstotheCouncil

1.Outreachinitiativetoeducatethepubliconthevaluesand importanceoftheMPAsforasustainablefisheryisveryimportant. TheCouncilshouldconsidersupportforalltheinitiativesinthe USVIandextensiontoPuertoRico.

2.The ResponsibleConsumer=SustainableFishery outreach initiativeiseffectiveforconsumer’sinvolvementinfisheries protection.TheCouncilshouldconsidersupportforallthe initiativesinPuertoRicoandextendthemtotheUSVI.

Liaisonsreports…

• WilsonSantiago–PuertoRico

• NikitaCharles–St.Croix

• NikoleGreaux–St.Thomas/St.John

PuertoRicoLiaisonOfficer

2020LiaisonParticipation

• CoordinatevirtualPEPCOresourcesandpresentations

• SupportCristinaOlanwithnewpostatCFMCsocialmediaregarding closuresandDNERadministrativeordersforPuertoRicofishers

• Participateindifferentworkshopsregardingfisherieseducation

• Makeafisher'stelephonedatabaseforthetextmessagealertnetwork

• SupporttheCFMCtofindpicturesandareasofcatchperspeciesforthe 2021CFMCcalendar

• Makeanemaildatabaseoffishersforalertmessages

• SupportfisherswithissuesandinformationofDNERStateandFederal Closures

• Giveeducationalmaterialsforthefishers

PuertoRico’sFishersIssues

• IssueswithDNERlicenseandpermitprocedures

• Newfishers'misinformationaboutfishingclosures,statisticsreport, licensesandpermitsforstateandfederalwatersinPuertoRico

• Lowenforcementtowatchtheclosuresandillegalcommercialfishing instateandfederalwaters

CFMCLIASON:ST CROIX

NikitaCharles

UPDATESONRRSSI:

REEFRESPONSIBLESUSTAINABLESEAFOODINITIATIVE

Title3

EducationMaterials

Workingalongsidethe DepartmentofFishandWildlife togeteducationalmaterials printedoutfortheprogramsuch asposters,brochures,etc.

SocialMedia

Asateamwe’veestablished incorporatingweeklypostsonsocial mediaoutletssuchasFacebookand Instagramtohelppromoteandbring awarenesstoourmission.Having addeditemssuchas“TriviaTuesday” and“FishSpotlightFriday”toourpages.

CommercialFishers

NextcomingFridaywewillbe welcomingfishersatthereopening oftheLaReineFishMarketand givingthemtheopportunitylearn moreabouthowwecanhelpthem andhowtheycansignupforthe initiative

RESTAURANTTRAININGS

•Inaddition,morerestaurantshavebeenadded tothelistofReefResponsibleRestaurantsfor outreach.

•Currentlyweareschedulingrestauranttrainings forthemonthofDecember.

•Alsoworkingonestablishingmonthlyzoom trainingsaswellasaddingapresentationthat workswellwithinteractingvirtuallywith individuals.

•Metwithreefresponsibleadvisorycouncilto getinputontherestaurantpresentation.We havedecidedthatwewillbeincludingthings likeStonycoraltissuelossdisease(SCTLD) andexhibitingwaystoproperlymeasurelegal sizingforpurchasingspecifictypesofcatch.

Questions? Thankyou!