From Open Access to Assigned Rights: Examining the Development and Implementation of the Atlantic Sea Scallop Individual Fishing Quota Program for General Category Vessels (2010)

While the scallop resource and fishery gradually recovered from severe overfishing in the 1980’s and early 1990’s, the open access general category scallop fishery simultaneously grew, with more and more participants and landings each year.  By 2005, the fishery had tripled in size in terms of participants and landings shot up from only a few hundred-thousand pounds lb to over 10 million lb.  The New England Fishery Management Council (Council) struggled to keep up with the expansion of the fishery, each year underestimating the next year’s expected landings.  As a result, in 2006, the Council began developing a program to limit participation in the general category scallop fishery and allocate a portion of the scallop landings to the fleet.  In June 2007, the Council adopted a limited access and an individual fishing quota program along with an allocation of 5 percent of the overall scallop landings to help prevent estimation errors in catch.  NMFS implemented the Council’s recommendations in the summer of 2008.  This discussion will examine the development and implementation of these measures and how it has changed the general category fishery.