I understand how the government sets yearly quotas on number of pounds that can be caught during the fishing season, to protect the species population.
The part I don't understand and even with Google, I have yet really been able to find out a correct answer on what the quota is for each boat.
In the 2014 fishing season, the boat, the Wizard lost half of his quota to his former business partner, and was only allowed to catch about 100K lbs. of the king crab. I saw that the Northwestern caught their quota of 227K lbs. Some of the other boats were catching considerably less.
How does each boat get their quota number? Do they pay a licensing fee or bid, for example, the higher the fee/bid, the more they can catch? Do they (Fish and Game or whatever state/fed department gives out the fishing license/quotas) take the government's quota number and then divide that total weight by the total number of licenses awarded? I see that some boats will "buy" quotas/or a certain percentage of the quota off of other boats that can't reach their respective quota.
The part I don't understand and even with Google, I have yet really been able to find out a correct answer on what the quota is for each boat.
In the 2014 fishing season, the boat, the Wizard lost half of his quota to his former business partner, and was only allowed to catch about 100K lbs. of the king crab. I saw that the Northwestern caught their quota of 227K lbs. Some of the other boats were catching considerably less.
How does each boat get their quota number? Do they pay a licensing fee or bid, for example, the higher the fee/bid, the more they can catch? Do they (Fish and Game or whatever state/fed department gives out the fishing license/quotas) take the government's quota number and then divide that total weight by the total number of licenses awarded? I see that some boats will "buy" quotas/or a certain percentage of the quota off of other boats that can't reach their respective quota.