Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Northeast Multispecies Fishery; Framework Adjustment 32 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan

NMFS issues this final rule to implement measures contained in Framework Adjustment 32 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan (FMP) to address management measures for silver hake (whiting), red hake, and offshore hake. This final rule implementing Framework Adjustment 32 (Framework 32) establishes that a vessel's whiting and offshore hake possession limit shall be determined by the smallest codend mesh size the vessel has on board or the smallest mesh on board not incorporated into the body of a fully-constructed net, whichever is smaller. In addition, this final rule allows vessels fishing for small-mesh multispecies with 2.5-inch (6.35-cm) mesh codends to use a net strengthener. The intended effect of this action is to mitigate regulatory discards resulting from the whiting/offshore hake possession limits implemented in Amendment 12 and to reduce the administrative and compliance burdens associated with approved provisions of Amendment 12 to the FMP (Amendment 12).