NOAA Fisheries announces the final rule implementing Amendment 9 to the Fishery Management Plan for Coral and Coral Reef Resources in Gulf of Mexico U.S. waters (Amendment 9).\u00a0The final rule will be effective November 16, 2020.<\/p>\n
The rule establishes 13 new habitat areas of particular concern with fishing regulations, designates 8 new areas without fishing regulations, and modifies the regulations in 3 existing areas.\u00a0These areas have been identified as having sufficient numbers and diversity of deep-water corals to be considered essential fish habitat.<\/p>\n
Fishing regulations apply to fishing in the Gulf of Mexico, including fishing for highly migratory species.<\/p>\n
SUMMARY OF CHANGES:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n For the changes below, except where otherwise stated, bottom-tending gear is defined as:\u00a0bottom longline, bottom trawl, buoy gear, dredge, pot or trap, and bottom anchoring by fishing vessels.\u00a0Buoy gear does not refer to highly migratory species buoy gear, which is not a bottom-tending gear.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The rule:<\/p>\n An interactive web application visualizing new HAPC areas, with detailed bounding coordinates, fishing regulations, and a shapefile download option, can be accessed online from here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n More details of the rule could be found on the final rule page<\/a>.<\/p>\n Additionally, the final rule modifies the prohibitions on \u201cfishing with bottom-tending gear\u201d to \u201cdeployment of bottom-tending gear\u201d for habitat areas of particular concern in the Gulf of Mexico, including those established in Amendment 9.\u00a0\u201cDeploy\u201d is defined for the purpose of these prohibitions to mean that the gear is in contact with the water.<\/p>\n FORMAL\u00a0FEDERAL REGISTER\u00a0NAME\/NUMBER:\u00a0\u00a085 FR 65740, published October 16, 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NOAA Fisheries announces the final rule implementing Amendment 9 to the Fishery Management Plan for Coral and Coral Reef Resources in Gulf of Mexico U.S. waters (Amendment 9).\u00a0The final rule will be effective November 16, 2020. The rule establishes 13 new habitat areas of particular concern with fishing regulations, designates 8 new areas without fishing… Continue Reading Final Rule Implementing Coral Amendment 9 in Gulf of Mexico<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":423,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,24,5],"tags":[79,75,40,76,78,77],"class_list":["post-418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-management","category-news","tag-amendment-9","tag-coral-9","tag-coral-amendment","tag-final-rule","tag-fishery-management","tag-fmp","latest_post"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n