For any fishery that's ITQ, IQ, or any of those types of fisheries, we don't occupy ourselves with limits on the vessels. Where we are concerned is in terms of overcapitalization, bad use of capital, and creating the situation where people are pushing themselves to further invest in capacity when they don't have enough fish to make it pay. There's pressure on the stocks as a result of that. And it does turn it into an economic and conservation concern. In fisheries that are competitive, we don't have those other incentives to get the balance right.
In an ITQ fishery, the incentive for the head of the enterprise is to get the right boat for the amount of quota they have so they don't have excessive costs and they don't have poor economic or fuel efficiency.
Where we've seen it go in the other direction is in terms of vessels that were designed for competitive groundfish fisheries. You'll see them. They're at the limit. They're 44 feet 11 inches. They're very wide in the beam and deep. It is unfortunate that they've gone that way. It's a big capital investment in something that costs a lot of money to run, that's uncomfortable, and that isn't necessarily the best choice for the fishery. But they're the best choice for those individual fishermen in light of the way we manage the fishery.
We would like to see different incentives in place, and that's why in 2003 we offered fishermen the opportunity to choose different types of management regimes so they could get away from these vessel replacement rules. Many fleets have not chosen that kind of approach.
Where you have other management strategies, we don't need these replacement rules. It's where we have a competitive fishery and the incentive is to build bigger and bigger boats, and more and more capital is spent to get a bigger share of the TAC for your enterprise, that you have the tragedy of over-investment. And eventually you end up with extreme pressure on the minister and the government to make more fish available. We have to avoid that, if possible, and find other ways to deal with these capacity issues.