Fishermen from Canada’s Pacific groundfish trawling industry have voluntarily agreed to adopt measures that penalize fishermen for catching too much bycatch.

Starting April 1, Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans will begin

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enforcing maximum quotas on bycatch. Those who go over that quota will not be allowed to fish for the rest of the season unless they buy more quota from another vessel, David Suzuki Foundation’s Scott Wallace told IntraFish.

“It’s been a very lengthy process and when we started the process fishermen were both leary and suspicious of how we could come up with a program that protected the quid pro quo,” Brian Mose, a fisherman and vessel owner with the Canadian Groundfish Research and Conservation Society, told IntraFish.