Fishery Management Plan for Coastal Migratory Pelagic Resources of the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic.

This Fishery Management Plan concerns fishing for mackerel (King mackerel, Spanish mackerel and Cobia) in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and in the coastal and fishery conservation zone (FCZ) off the south Atlantic coast as specified in the Plan. The Plan also in some measure concerns dolphins and its place in the ecosystem. The Plan: gives a detailed description of the fisheries, species involved and their habitats; sets allocations for recreational and commercial fisheries, and divides the commercial allocation between net and hook–and–line fishermen; establishes procedures for the Secretary of Commerce to take action by regulatory amendment to resolve possible future conflicts in the fishery, such as establish fishing zones and local quotas to each gear or user group. The Secretary of Commerce may implement measures designed to provide limitations, where appropriate, on any gear or device used in the fishery to reduce gear and user group conflicts and may use time and area restrictions to resolve conflicts between user groups. The Plan also gives guidelines for the determination of the Optimum Yield (OY) for the fishery and concerns certain reporting requirements for statistical purposes. Optimum yield is selected by trading of the risk of overfishing against the failure to maximize full utilization of the resource. The selected management regime allows exploitation up to the best estimate of Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) based on available data. The preferred management options represent the trade-offs involved in minimizing the adverse Impacts on anyone user group. The total allowable level of foreign fishing (TALFF) is specified as zero for Spanish mackerel fisheries.