Fisheries Off West Coast States and in the Western Pacific; Western Pacific Crustacean Fisheries; Bank-specific Harvest Guidelines

NMFS issues this final rule to implement a regulatory amendment under the framework procedures of the Fishery Management Plan for the Crustacean Fisheries of the Western Pacific Region. This rule divides the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) lobster fishery into four fishing grounds and allows the Southwest Regional Administrator, NMFS (Regional Administrator) to allocate the annual NWHI harvest guideline among these grounds for the 1999 season and beyond. Also, this final rule allows a lobster vessel carrying an operational NMFS- certified vessel monitoring system (VMS) unit to be within the boundary of a fishing grounds immediately after it is closed, provided the vessels is making steady progress to an open fishing grounds or back to port. This rule is intended to protect the lobster resources at each fishing ground, to provide better data on stocks, and to conserve the resource.