However, the quota limits, determined largely by commercial considerations, are now believed to have been set too high.

Current quota limits reflect the vulnerable nature of wild stocks, with quotas being reduced for the 2010/2011 seasons to 80% of years previous.

As with compressed files, the actual sizes of sparse files are not taken into account when determining quota limits.

Peanuts marketed above the quota limits (called additional peanuts) had to be crushed for non-edible uses or exported.

Pronk advocates establishing a legal market for the animals: "Set conservative quota limits, limits everyone can agree upon, that pose no risk to the wild population.

The MMO issues licence variations to reflect changes in licence conditions, quota limits and openings and closures of sea areas.

The local fishing industry has all but ceased due to EU quota limits and competition from larger fleets from Spain and France.

The Department of Commerce, in conjunction with the Office of the United States Trade Representative, determines and fixes quota limits.

The balance between offering an incentive to land discarded fish and the disincentive to catch fish over or outside quota limits is clearly a fine one, and dependent on the financial reward or penalty attached.

'So far, happily, tanker movements in the early part of March indicate a pretty good response from key OPEC members as regards production restraint, with Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait all within their quota limits,' the survey reported.

The report, scheduled for release on Friday, says that permits for peanut production within quota limits, distributed without charge to longtime farmers by the Government, have become so valuable that two-thirds of those holding the permits now lease them to other farmers who actually produce the peanuts.