Maximum sustainable yield of a nonlinear population model with continuous age structure

Here we investigate the maximum sustainable yield problem for an age-structured population whose dynamics are density dependent. We use the nonlinear version of the McKendrick model of population dynamics that was introduced by Gurtin and MacCamy and do not constrain the magnitude of the harvesting term. We show that this problem has an optimal solution and that the optimum is attainable by a bimodal harvesting policy. This result is consistent with the results obtained by Grey for the nonlinear Leslie model.