Council Regulation (EU) 2020/123 of 27 January 2020 fixing for 2020 the fishing opportunities for certain fish stocks and groups of fish stocks, applicable in Union waters and, for Union fishing vessels, in certain non-Union waters (c. 123)

TITLE II U.K. FISHING OPPORTUNITIES FOR UNION FISHING VESSELS

CHAPTER III U.K. Fishing opportunities in waters of regional fisheries management organisations

Section 8 U.K. WCPFC Convention Area

Article 40 U.K. Management of fishing with FADs

1. In the part of the WCPFC Convention Area located between 20° N and 20° S, it shall be prohibited for purse seiners to deploy, service or set on FADs between 00.00 hours on 1 July 2020 and 24.00 hours on 30 September 2020.

2. In addition to the prohibition set out in paragraph 1, it shall be prohibited to set on FADs on the high seas of the WCPFC Convention Area, between 20° N and 20° S, for an additional two months: either from 00.00 hours on 1 April 2020 to 24.00 hours on 31 May 2020, or from 00.00 hours on 1 November 2020 to 24.00 hours on 31 December 2020.

3. Paragraph 2 shall not apply in the following cases:

(a) in the final set of a trip, if the vessel has insufficient well space left to accommodate all fish;

(b) where the fish is unfit for human consumption for reasons other than size, or

(c) when a serious malfunction of freezer equipment occurs.

4. Member States shall ensure that each of its purse seiners have deployed at sea, at any time, no more than 350 FADs with activated instrumented buoys. The buoy shall be activated exclusively on board a vessel.

5. All purse seiners fishing in the part of the WCPFC Convention Area referred to in paragraph 1 shall retain on board, tranship and land all bigeye, yellowfin and skipjack tuna caught.