THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Monday, July 31, 1995                  TAG: 9507310103
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER 
                                             LENGTH: Short :   47 lines

LIMITED ENTRY SYSTEMS DIFFER FROM CURRENT RULES

While fisheries managers in North Carolina have for a number of years tried to limit where fishermen can use their nets and other fishing gear - closing some waterways to trawl boats, for example - that is not an example of limited entry management systems.

So-called limited entry, or limited access, systems assign specific fishing privileges to commercial fishermen and also place a cap on the number of fishermen eligible to receive those fishing privileges, Duke University researcher Michael K. Orbach said.

Over the next four months, Orbach and East Carolina University researcher Jeff Johnson will ask North Carolina fishermen what form of limited entry, if any, might be appropriate to fisheries in North Carolina.

Generally, limited entry systems fall into one of three general categories. They restrict:

People and vessels, such as one of the country's oldest limited entry systems used in Alaska's salmon industry and the new limited entry system in Maryland;

Gear, such as the spiny lobster fishery in Florida, where the number of lobster traps are restricted, and the system in Maryland, which limits the number of crab pots fishermen can use; and

The size of the catch, such as limits imposed by the federal government on the number of wreckfish taken in the South Atlantic.

Of the limited entry systems, those that restrict the amount of fish and assign a portion of that catch to individual fishermen, known as individual transferable quotas, or ITQs, are the most controversial among commercial fishermen.

They generally believe that ITQs unfairly favor the large fishing operations and lead to reductions in the numbers of small commercial fishermen. And they say ITQs are not suitable for states like North Carolina, where commercial fishermen work in a wide variety of fisheries during the year. MEMO: Main story also on page B1.

KEYWORDS: COMMERCIAL FISHING by CNB