Ever heard of catch shares?

Here's a guest post from our friend Debbie Salamone of the Pew Environment Group's Campaign to End Overfishing in the Southeast:

No, it’s not some obscure baseball term. If you guessed it has to do with fish, you just reeled in the big one.

Catch shares are a way of managing how annual limits of fish are caught. Fishery managers divide the allowable catch among individual fishermen and groups of fishermen.

It’s a controversial idea that’s gaining steam as fishery managers try to meet legal requirements to end overfishing. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration formed a task force to study the issue, and the group, composed of fishery managers from around the country and NOAA experts, is expected soon to recommend how widely catch shares should be used.

Catch shares already exist in some places, including New England, Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. In the Gulf, for example, the system set up in 2007 for red snapper has helped commercial fishermen better manage catch. With a guaranteed amount of fish they are allowed to catch, fishermen can spread their trips over time so they can meet the market demand for red snapper and get the best value for the fish they sell. Otherwise, a market glut of red snapper all at once can decrease the fish’s value.

Supporters maintain catch shares give fishermen an economic incentive to conserve the resource because the more fish in the ecosystem, the more fish they’ll get to catch.

Detractors contend catch shares can contribute to different environmental problems. For example, if fishermen are allowed 100 fish, they might be more choosy about which ones they keep. That means they may throw less valuable fish back into the water and for some species, the survival rate isn’t good. Additionally, catch shares can result in consolidation of fishing fleets to the detriment of smaller traditional fishing communities. And they could limit access for recreational anglers.

Some lawsuits over catch share programs already are working through the courts.

The question now is whether NOAA will recommend that fishery managers across the country be required to consider catch shares for all their fish management plans or justify why more traditional ideas – such as size limits and closed fishing seasons for spawning times -- work better.

The decision could turn some fish management plans on their heads and spark heated debates around the country.

The bottom line is that catch shares can be successful but like any form of management, they are just one tool that should be brought out for the right problem. They aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution and need careful design, fair and equitable quota distribution and scientifically sound limits on the total numbers of fish caught annually.