Covers the assessment models used to estimate fish population status: growth and mortality estimation, catch-at-age analysis, surplus production models, statistical catch-at-age, reference points, and the propagation of uncertainty into management advice.
Data-poor methods are treated at length. The majority of fished populations worldwide have no survey time series, and the available approaches are crude. The course takes the position that a crude estimate with an honest uncertainty range is more useful to a manager than silence, and examines how crude is too crude.
Students complete assessments using real data with its defects retained. The course is taken by students in fisheries science and by graduate students in resource management, and is not simplified for the latter.