Amendment 31 to the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan

Amendment 31 defines 20 stocks for the following 14 species: black, canary, copper, quillback, squarespot, vermilion, and vermilion/sunset rockfishes; Dover, petrale, and rex soles; lingcod, Pacific spiny dogfish, sablefish, and shortspine thornyhead. Amendment 31 does not require implementing regulations, and none are implemented.

Background

“Stocks” have a very specific meaning in the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA), and are required to be identified in each FMP. Prior to this Amendment, the FMP only listed species’ latin and common name with no geographical distinction. Of the 80+ species in the FMP, 14 species were prioritized by the Council to have stocks defined now because they had assessments of abundance and productivity in either 2021 or 2023.

This action is necessary for NOAA Fisheries to make stock status determinations, which in turn will help prevent overfishing, rebuild overfished stocks, and achieve optimum yield.