Lead Agency Responsible Official For Further Information Contact National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

• Main Authors: National Marine, Fisheries Service, Doug Mecum, Jane Dicosimo
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: category; prohibited species in the EC category; Bering Sea; Gulf of Alaska; Alaska; Aleutian Islands
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.170.462; http://www.alaskafisheries.noaa.gov/npfmc/current_issues/ACL/ACL_final_310.pdf

Abstract: This document contains an Environmental Assessment for a proposed 96 th amendment to the Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for Groundfish of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI) Management Area and a proposed 87 th amendment to the FMP for Groundfish of the Gulf of Alaska (GOA). This action is necessary to comply with requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act to end and prevent overfishing, rebuild overfished stocks, achieve optimum yield, and to comply with statutory requirements for annual catch limits (ACLs) and accountability measures (AMs). Species and species groups must be identified in the fishery for which ACLs and AMs would be required. An ecosystem component (EC) may also be included in the FMPs for species and species groups that are not targeted for harvest, or likely to become overfished or subject to overfishing, and are not generally retained for sale or personal use. The effect of the proposed action is to amend the BSAI and GOA groundfish FMPs to identify target groundfish stocks in the fishery, forage fish species either in the fishery or in the ecosystem component