Threatened species managers are often required to make swift decisions in the face of considerable uncertainty. We tested a structured approach for evaluating conservation options for the critically endangered orange‐bellied parrot. The Orange‐bellied Parrot Recovery Team provides advice to government agencies to inform the allocation of a limited number of captive‐bred birds to different release scenarios. Using a structured expert elicitation approach, we determined that scenarios where more fledglings were released were more cost‐effective compared to other options. Following this finding in 2019, the recovery team adjusted plans and allocated additional birds to fledgling release, a response that contributed to an increase in wild birds migrating in 2020 and 2021. The challenges facing orange‐bellied parrot conservation, including limitations in animals, time and resources, and high uncertainty, are common for threatened species recovery programs. Here we show that a structured process can help managers grapple with these complex trade‐offs to make timely decisions.
The decision to intervene in endangered species management is often complicated. Migratory species exemplify this difficulty because they experience diverse threats at different times and places that can act cumulatively and synergistically on their populations. We use population viability analysis (PVA) to compare potential conservation interventions on the critically endangered, migratory Orange-bellied Parrot Neophema chrysogaster. This species suffers high juvenile mortality, but it is not clear why this is so. Given uncertainty about the best recovery strategy, we compare PVA scenarios that simulate various ways of utilizing captive-bred parrots to support the wild population in the context of unresolved threatening processes. Increasing the number of juveniles entering the population each year had the greatest benefit for population growth rate and size. Directly lowering juvenile mortality rates is difficult given uncertainty about the drivers of mortality in the wild. In lieu of this, releasing 100 juveniles from captivity to the wild population each autumn (either as a stand-alone action, or in combination with other interventions) was the most feasible and straightforward intervention of the options we tested. However, our PVAs also show that unless substantial and sustainable reductions can be made to juvenile mortality rates, Orange-bellied Parrots will remain dependent on intensive conservation management. This study highlights the utility of PVAs for answering practical questions about how to implement species conservation. PVAs provide a way to incorporate the best available information in a replicable modelling framework, and to identify impacts of parameter uncertainty on demographic trends.
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