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ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil Advance Access published online on September 25, 2009
ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil, doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsp232
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© 2009 The Author(s)
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Towards a precautionary approach to managing Canada's commercial harp seal hunt

Russell Leaper1, David M. Lavigne2, Peter Corkeron3 and David W. Johnston4

1 School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Tillydrone Avenue, Aberdeen AB24 2TZ, UK
2 International Fund for Animal Welfare, 40 Norwich Street East, Guelph, ON, Canada N1H 2G6
3 Bioacoustics Research Program, Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Road, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA
4 Division of Marine Sciences and Conservation, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University Marine Laboratory, 135 Duke Marine Laboratory Road, Beaufort, NC 28516, USA

Correspondence to R. Leaper: tel: +44 1397 772544; fax: +44 870 0511489; e-mail: r.c.leaper{at}abdn.ac.uk.

Leaper, R., Lavigne, D. M., Corkeron, P., and Johnston, D. W. 2010. Towards a precautionary approach to managing Canada's commercial harp seal hunt. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 67: 000–000.

The Canadian government's approach to the management of its commercial harp seal hunt is compared with other precautionary approaches developed for setting anthropogenic removal limits for marine mammal populations. For Canada's harp seal hunt, the current management strategy has not been fully specified or tested, and its robustness to changes in biological parameters, uncertainty in input data and environmental variability, remains unknown. As such, the management approach cannot be considered precautionary and there is a substantial, but not quantified, probability that it will not meet its objectives. There is an urgent need for a fully specified and rigorously tested management procedure, and steps towards this are suggested that should reduce the risks associated with the current approach.

Keywords: harp seal, management plan, precautionary approach

Received 29 April 2009; accepted 16 August 2009.


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