Bowhead Aboriginal Whaling Management Procedure Trials and Statistics

We address the terms of reference of the Aboriginal Whaling Management Procedure (AWMP) Steering Group (IWC, 1996): terminology, data availability, case-speciicity, incorporation of need, performance evaluation statistics, testing framework, and simulation trials. Case-speciic strike limit algorithms are most appropriate for aboriginal whaling regimes. Need and quotas should be expressed in terms of strikes. The goal of meeting aboriginal need has very diierent implications that the commercial goal of maximizing catch. A thorough testing framework is proposed, along with a diverse set of simulation evaluation trials, analogous to those used to evaluate the commercial Revised Management Procedure, that are appropriate and suucient for evaluation of an AWMP for the bowhead stock, and which are a speciic example of a general framework. Eight performance statistics are also proposed to measure the extent to which the simulation performance of a candidate AWMP strike limit algorithm meets each of the aboriginal management objectives of the IWC.