Using Structured Decision Making to Incorporate Ecological and Social Values into Harvest Decisions

Harvest decisions for fish and wildlife populations often include conflicting ecological, economic, and social values. Using decision analysis, such as structured decision making and adaptive management, as a framework to aid decision makers in multi-objective decision making for setting harvest regulations can lead to a more transparent and resilient decision. The process includes opportunities for inclusion of stakeholders’ concerns, either through multi-party workshops or the use of social science techniques to elicit objectives (i.e., values) and predict consequences of management actions. The authors present two case studies of using decision analysis to determine stakeholders’ objectives, identify alternative harvest strategies, predict the consequences of these alternatives on all objectives, and analyze tradeoffs among objectives. A case study of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in New York State provides an example of combining predictive population modeling and implementation of survey instruments statewide to determine optimal region-specific harvest regulations. Harvest management of walleye (Sander vitreus) provides an example of the inclusion of commercial and recreational angler groups in a series of workshops to make decisions about harvest quotas for one of the world’s largest freshwater fisheries.