© 2005 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea
Managing fish stocks under climate uncertainty
a School for Marine Science and Technology, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth 706 South Rodney French Boulevard, New Bedford, MA 02744-1221, USA
b National Marine Fisheries Service, Northeast Fisheries Science Center 166 Water Street, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA
*Correspondence to B. J. Rothschild: tel: +1 508 999 8193; fax: +1 508 999 8197. e-mail: brothschild{at}umassd.edu.
The quantitative evaluation of the management of fish stocks under uncertainty requires a formal framework. Decision theory provides that framework. Application of decision theory to fishery management requires information about both the fish stock and the state of the environment. Using Georges Bank haddock as a case study, it is possible to determine the probability of good or poor recruitment using past data and a constant environment. Understanding the state of the environment is more difficult, however, because fixed levels of recruitment, in particular, are associated with different population characteristics, which drastically reduce the sample size for any particular recruitment–environment scenario. Decision theory challenges us to improve our capability of predicting the state of nature, and it appears that this can be accomplished best by reducing the length of the causal chain, a goal now made feasible by the availability of high-resolution, high-frequency ocean models.
Keywords: decision theory, haddock, recruitment
Received 18 August 2004; accepted 28 June 2005.