EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In August of 2005, fishing in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Island crab fisheries began under a new sharebased management program (the “rationalization program”). The program is unique in several ways, including the allocation of processing shares corresponding to a portion of the harvest share pool....

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Bering Sea, Aleutian Isl, S King, Tanner Crabs
Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: 2007
Subjects:
Online Access:http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.81.2076
http://www.fakr.noaa.gov/npfmc/current_issues/crab/KTC27CrabCustomProcUseCapExempt1107.pdf
Description
Summary:In August of 2005, fishing in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Island crab fisheries began under a new sharebased management program (the “rationalization program”). The program is unique in several ways, including the allocation of processing shares corresponding to a portion of the harvest share pool. Under the program, 90 percent of the annual harvest share allocation is issued as “Class A ” individual fishing quota (IFQ), which must be delivered in a designated region and may only be delivered to a processor holding unused individual processing quota (IPQ). The recent reauthorization of the Magnuson Stevens Act (MSA) included a provision to exempt custom processing in the North region of the Bering Sea C. opilio fishery from processing use caps established under the crab rationalization program. This document analyzes that exemption and the interpretation of the MSA language, as well as options to extend the exemption to the following other fisheries: • the Western Aleutian Islands golden king crab fishery, • the Western Aleutian Islands red king crab fishery, • the Eastern Aleutian Islands golden king crab fishery, • the St. Matthews blue king crab fishery, and • the Pribilof red and blue king crab fishery.