Perhaps the most interesting amendment is the provision to allow states to trade bits of their quota amongst each other. Essentially, if one state isn’t able to or doesn’t want to fish its entire slice of the dogfish quota, it can sell off some of that quota to another state. This is where having a share of the quota becomes valuable to a state like Delaware, which doesn’t really have a tooled-up dogfish fishery and probably won’t be a significant player in the game for a few years. Until it builds up its own fleet, Delaware can still profit from its bit of quota by trading it off to other states.
Since each state has its own allocated share, the state’s fishermen can wait until good days to go fishing, comfortable in the knowledge that no one else is gobbling up their quota… hey, wait a second… That’s right, the amendments to the spiny dogfish FMP basically create a coast-wide catch share program.
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