Pacific Coast fishery regulators have voted for new rules that would give each fishing boat a fixed share of the West Coast groundfish fishery. It is said that under new rules each trawler would get a percentage of the total groundfish harvest, so fishermen would not need to rush out to grab their portion of the catch. According to the new management programme the amount of bycatch – unwanted fish that are caught and dumped overboard, would be reduce.
Johanna Thomas, a fisheries expert with the Environmental Defense Fund, told that there will be strong conservation improvements with this programme. According to fishermen and environmentalists new rule is an important step to bring individual fishing quotas to the West Coast. The system is already used in Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, Canada, Australia, Iceland and other countries.
It was in 2000 when the West Coast groundfish fishery was declared disaster by the federal government after a sharp decline in fish populations. Now the effort of the government’s measures bear fruits and the groundfish fishery made up of about 80 species is the biggest on the West Coast.
