The West Coast Shorebased Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) Program is a catch share program that was implemented in the West Coast groundfish trawl fishery in January 2011. The fishery operates off Washington, Oregon, and California targeting a diverse set of species, including Pacific whiting, sole, flounder, rockfish, lingcod, sablefish, and more.

The Measuring the Effects of Catch Shares Project’s interdisciplinary team of scientists gathered and analyzed data on important aspects of the fishery before and after the beginning of the West Coast Shorebased IFQ Program. Focusing on a set of ecological, economic, governance, and social indicators, they looked for changes that occurred in the first five years of the catch share program and sought to determine whether the changes were a result of the program. Presented below are brief summaries of findings for each indicator. Click on the summaries to see the full results, including interactive charts and objective analysis, along with links to data and information sources.