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Actually, Mike, if fluke were landed as bycatch in another fishery, it could still presumably be landed against the vessel's fluke quota. Point is, IFQs (ITQs, LAPs, whatever you want to call them) represent a major philosophical shift in the way species are managed. Because that's not what managers are currently using here on the East Coast, I've no idea all of the specifics of such a theoretical change.
I offered this up based on a great deal of personal observation, tons of anecdotal info, etc. It may not be the way things pan out, but from where I sit, you can't get much worse than the current system.
It's time for a huge change, and you have to start somewhere.
My argument was not so much that IFQs are the only way to go--I do think that system would curb waste significantly, and it's waste that is the number-one problem under the current regulatory philosophy--but rather that some common sense needs to be injected back into a scientific bureaucracy that moves pretty @#$%^ slowly when new ideas don't fall in line with the current model.
Anyone has great ideas, I'd love to hear about them.
ZH
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