2018-19093. Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

The Department of Commerce will submit to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for clearance the following proposal for collection of information under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act.

Agency: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Title: Reporting of Sea Turtle Incidental Take in Virginia Chesapeake Bay Pound Net Operations.

OMB Control Number: 0648-0470.

Form Number(s): None.

Type of Request: Regular (extension of a currently approved information collection).

Number of Respondents: 35.

Average Hours per Response: 10 minutes.

Burden Hours: 165.

Needs and Uses: This request is for extension of a current information collection.

This action would continue the reporting measure requiring all Virginia Chesapeake Bay pound net fishermen to report interactions with endangered and threatened sea turtles, found both live and dead, in their pound net operations. When a live or dead sea turtle is discovered during a pound net trip, the Virginia pound net fisherman is required to report the incidental take to National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and, if necessary, the appropriate rehabilitation and stranding network. This information will be used to monitor the level of incidental take in the state-managed Virginia pound net fishery and ensure that the seasonal pound net leader restrictions (50 CFR 223.206(d)(10)) are adequately protecting listed sea turtles. Based on the number of sea turtle takes anticipated in the Virginia pound net fishery and the available number of Virginia pound net fishermen and pound nets, the number of responses anticipated on an annual basis is 988. This is an increase from the previous information collection (n=483) as we used the maximum number of possible licensed pound net sites per Virginia fishery regulations (n=161) on which to base our information collection estimate, rather than the number of documented sites from NMFS monitoring efforts (n=80), as the latter is outdated and may be an underestimate.

Affected Public: Individuals or households.

Frequency: On occasion.

Respondent's Obligation: Mandatory.

This information collection request may be viewed at reginfo.gov. Follow the instructions to view Department of Commerce collections currently under review by OMB.

Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of this notice to [e-mail] or fax to [phone].

Dated: August 28, 2018.

Sarah Brabson,

NOAA PRA Clearance Officer.