Potential Economic Benefits and Optimum Fleet Size in the Pacific Coast Trawl Fleet

Limiting entry to the Pacific coast groundfish fishery poses two principal questions: (1) How large are the potential economic returns under limited access management? and (2) Will the economic benefits exceed the program costs plus costs associated with transitory dislocations in the fishery? This paper reports on a partial evaluation of the first question, based on a mixed integer programming model that computesoptimum fleet size, fishing effort configuration, and associated economic surplus. The multispecies fishery, economicparameters, annual harvest constraints, and summary results are presented. Overall, a maximum economic profit of about $12 million can be generated by a trawl fleet that is about 38 percent smaller than the baseline 1984 fleet with a 23 percent reduction in weeks fished. Another important conclusion isthat economic profits would suffer if fishing vessels are prevented from shifting among groundfish, pink shrimp, and jointventure fisheries.