Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Atlantic Herring Fishery; Adjustments to 2016 Annual Catch Limits

This action adjusts initial 2016 annual catch limits for the Atlantic herring fishery to account for the under-harvest and overages of fishing year 2014 sub-annual catch limits. The 2015 specifications will remain in place after December 31, 2015, until NMFS sets new specifications through a 2016-2018 fishery specifications final rule, which NMFS expects to publish in the spring of 2016. In accordance with the regulations implementing the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan, this action uses final herring catch data from 2014 for determining what under-harvest and overages occurred in fishing year 2014, and adjusts the initial 2016 annual catch limits for the four management areas (Areas 1A, 1B, 2, and 3). In addition, this action adjusts the initial 2016 stock-wide annual catch limit to account for any management area overages incurred in 2014. In order to ensure that carryover pounds do not cause overfishing of the herring resource, area-specific carryover does not increase the initial stock-wide catch allocation. This action is necessary to ensure that NMFS accounts for herring catch consistent with the requirements of the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan.