Biological information needs Clause Samples

Biological information needs. The sustainable management of a population requires some basic biological data that can be compared to the total harvest. As far as possible, management should be carried out at the population (flyway) scale; hence, a basic requirement is to agree on population (flyway) delineations including migratory pathways (see Section 5.2.2). However, an informed approach to setting allowable harvests does not require detailed demographic information which currently is not available for the majority of waterbird populations in the AEWA region. Essential to the process, however, are estimates of either the observed growth rate from a monitoring program or the growth rate expected under ideal conditions. The latter can in turn be based on empirical data or on allometric models. In addition, periodic estimates of population size are needed, as well as either empirical information or reasonable assumptions about population processes, i.e. about the form of density dependence. It should be stressed that whatever the source of information, managers should strive to account for uncertainty in demographic parameters, as well as for the decision-makers’ objectives and attitude toward risk. For technical details on minimum information requirements and simple estimation of allowable levels of harvest, see ▇▇▇▇▇▇ et al. (2015) and references therein.