Evaluating Alternative Estimators of Fishery Management Reference Points

摘要

Evaluation of alternative estimators of fishery management reference points was presented. Control rules, pre-agreed strategies for making management decisions, used to determine catch limits, typically required estimates of one of the following: stock depeletion (B sub(0)), spawning biomass at which maximum sustainable yield was achieved (B sub(MSY)), or spawning biomass relative to B sub(0). Reliable estimation of biomass reference points was important because they impacted fisheries management, via the setting of catch quotas. Two general approaches were used to estimate B sub(MSY), estimating it directly, and setting it at some fraction of the estimate of B sub(0). The results showed that the average recruitment estimators were most robust, had the lowest median of the absolute relative errors (MARE), for the hake. It was concluded that actual percent MAREs was optimistic.