Incorporating Uncertainty into Fishery Models

Incorporating Uncertainty into Marine Mammal Management

Debra Palka

doi: https://doi.org/10.47886/9781888569315.ch10

Abstract.—Management schemes for marine mammals developed by the United States and International Whaling Commission (IWC) have sought to achieve their management objectives by developing control laws designed to calculate acceptable levels of human-caused mortality, while explicitly incorporating some types of uncertainty, and while being robust to other types of uncertainty. The United States developed the “potential biological removal” control law in managing commercial fisheries to reduce incidental catches of marine mammals. The IWC developed, but has not yet used the “catch limit algorithm” control law in managing commercial harvests of baleen whales. In both cases, to develop and test the control law, quantitative management objectives were specified, and only reliably and easily collected data were required. Then, given these specifications and requirements, simulations were used to define the control law and test its robustness to uncertainties in assumptions and data. Finally, to identify unforeseen uncertainties, the management schemes include rules and guidelines on reviews, monitoring programs, and data collection and analyses.