NMFS Catch Share Policy/Comparison of Elements

There are 15 federal catch share programs in the US dating from 1990 and the first US individual fishing quota program in the Mid-Atlantic surf clam and ocean quahog fishery. The scale and diversity of US fisheries using catch shares is explored, from single species-single gear types with a fleet size less than a dozen vessels in the South Atlantic to large trawlers and catcher processors for multispecies groundfish in the Bering Sea.  The existing resource and economic conditions preceding the choice and transition to catch shares were quite varied, and the eventual designs of the catch share program elements these fisheries transitioned to are equally diverse.  However, there are common threads in program design principles that are apparent, and how they informed the development of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations’ 2010 national policy on catch shares is examined.