[Article] From Rags to Fishes: Data-Poor Methods for Fishery Managers

Abstract. —Fishery managers often must make decisions regardless of data availability or completeness of scientific understanding. Existing and new legal mandates, such as the requirement to establish Annual Catch Limits for each United States fishery by 2011, as well as the ongoing need to improve understanding of fish stock dynamics, are driving efforts to develop new, more efficient ways to assess fish stocks when resources are insufficient for full stock assessments. Moreover, there is an increasing recognition of the need to assess stocks at smaller spatial scales. In December 2008, fishery scientists, fishermen, and managers convened at a workshop in Berkeley, California (USA), to discuss such methods. One goal of the workshop was to identify methods for estimating potential reference points for managing data-poor fisheries, such as science-based overfishing thresholds, allowable biological catch levels, and vulnerability indices. Here we review methods presented at the workshop, as well as some promising methods gleaned from the literature, for establishing reference points for data-poor situations. We present a new framework to help managers and stakeholders consider and choose appropriate analytical methods and alternative management approaches, based on avail-able data (type, quantity, and quality) and feasibility constraints (scale, value, and implementation costs). We highlight limitations and considerations for each method and illustrate the use of our framework by present-ing case-study examples. Too often, lack of data and/or proper data analysis results in lack of management