Harvest Optimization in Populations with Age Distributions

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Abstract
A harvester wishing to crop a population is faced with the choice of which age groups to remove. How the choice should be made in a population of females with seasonal births [the ringed seal, Phoca hispida] when the harvest is to be sustained indefinitely is considered. The numbers which can be removed from any age class depend on their expectation of future progeny, as measured by a harvest cost function (related to Fisher''s [1958] reproductive value). The smaller the harvest cost in any age class, the greater the proportion which can be harvested. Thus the smallest harvest is always obtained from a partial crop of the age class with greatest harvest cost. Under certain restricted conditions, the greatest harvest comes from a partial crop of the age class with smallest harvest cost, but it is more usual for the greatest harvest to require a crop of 2 age classes.

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