After a year of following catch-share program in West Coast fishermen found that it helped the industry cut down on wasted fish and enabling fishermen to “fish to the market.” West Coast groundfish fishery strictly followed the catch-share program which gives fishermen an economic incentive to fish more carefully and not waste the resource. The new system appears to be a success.
The new system actually forbids most throwbacks which used to be main problem of old way of fishing. Shems Jud of the Environmental Defense Fund, informed that after following this new catch share system discards have fallen 1 to 3 percent. Brent Paine, executive director of United Catcher Boats, Seattle, said the system “has worked out extremely well.” He told that this system helped fishermen to figure out pretty quickly how to target species that they fish to the market.
