There are 17 license holders in the year-round (offshore) shrimp fishery off Eastern Canada. Most of these were allocated in the developmental phase of this fishery in the early 1980s, before scientific information was acquired to understand the sustainable range of total allowable catch. The high cost to acquire and operate increasingly large and sophisticated vessels to operate year round, in dangerous ice conditions and remote northern waters, was an economic barrier that served to effectively match harvesting capacity with the available shrimp resource as it has fluctuated over time. This reality forged long-standing partnering arrangements between the 17 license holders, such that each active offshore fishing vessel harvests quotas held by multiple licenses.