1. July 24 - Recommendations to the Council Recommend that Council staff develop economic model to evaluate options for – STX : Move closure for lobster – STT and STJ : Move closure for grouper Olsen/Kojis Motion passes unanimously (For August 2013 mtg) Recommend that Council staff develop an economic model to evaluate options to move closure for Snapper Unit 2 for the December 2013 meeting Velazquez/Kojis Motion passes unanimously

2. July 24 - Issues to Keep in Mind and Address Data available (commercial landings, revenue) is not sufficient and needs to be improved St. Thomas - Data on fisheries participation can be incorporated St. Thomas - Market information is available and can be incorporated Concern that closures will be permanent and not flexible year to year PR – Data on fisheries participation will differ by region. Can we incorporate this information STX – Dolphin fishing varies seasonally

3. What is the Purpose of this Model? To present options for closures during the year for St. Croix Spiny lobster that will help ensure adherence to the ACL. Similar models would be developed for St. Thomas grouper, PR snapper units and other species where there is the possibility of exceeding the ACL. (Species specific, island/island group specific)

4. What Does the Model Do? 1)The model calculates the number of days a closure would be required to avoid exceeding the ACL. 2) The model calculates a closure option for each day of the year. 3) The model chooses the 20 closure options with the least revenue losses compared to a no closure situation.

5. Important Things to Know The length of the closures vary depending on the “base” year chosen. – Pounds that would have been caught are taken from base year – Revenue lost is taken from base year – A base year with high landings means long closures

6. Important Things to Know “Base” year: – Want to choose year that best reflects future years. – If appropriate base year is not chosen, ACL will be exceeded and not reached. – This draft model uses 2011 as a base year and also uses average pounds and landings from 2009- 2011 as the base year. The user can choose.

7. Model Assumptions Federal and state fishery will have same closure. Base year reflects future years Trip report data is sufficient to create these closure options No other fisheries participation is accounted for

8. Moving Forward Social, cultural and market information can be incorporated into the model after initial calculations. There are times when closures are not wanted and these options can be made known or eliminated. We are working with reps from each ACL unit fishery and island/island group to get this information – Higher demand during certain times of year (Lent, tourist season) – Cultural events (festivals) – Don’t want closure prior to Christmas

9. Input From the Council Is this useful and wanted? What changes would you like to see made? What other things do you want the model to do, if possible?