Almost one year ago, the West Coast’s largest commercial fishery by volume transitioned to a catch share management system. The new system:

• Enables fishermen operating in the multispecies groundfish trawl sector to fish when they want, rather than forcing them into a series of two-month “use it or lose it” fishing time-frames;
• Enables them to lease or trade quota for specific species and adapt their fishing practices to both market and weather conditions; and
• Ends the universally-despised “regulatory discards,” which, under the previous management system, compelled fishermen to throw uncounted tons of perfectly good fish overboard, dead. Read More »