There are regulations in place in Alaska that would prevent someone from participating in this salmon fishery and then moving over into another area and participating in that salmon fishery. That's to prevent the type of consolidation or concentration of wealth that is very much on your radar today. That's to protect local access in some areas, but the challenge we face in diversification is more that you've started with salmon but it's going to cost a young fisherman at least a quarter of a million dollars to get set up to run the salmon.
Where do you go from there? The cost of halibut quota alone is a non-starter for many young fishermen. The entry-level opportunity that I mentioned in my introduction, the jig fishery, is designed to support that diversification. You can go jig fishing with a $75 permit, but it's very difficult to make a living from jig fishing alone.
Diversification is very important and it's also very difficult because we manage our fisheries in silos, and those silos are currently very expensive.
