Prioritizing recovery funding to maximize conservation of endangered species

Abstract

The absence of a rigorous mechanism for prioritizing investment in endangered species management is a major implementation hurdle affecting recovery. Here, we present a method for prioritizing strategies for endangered species management based on the likelihood of achieving species' recovery goals per dollar invested. We demonstrate our approach for 15 species listed under Canada's Species at Risk Act that co-occur in Southwestern Saskatchewan. Without management, only two species have >50% probability of meeting recovery objectives; whereas, with management, 13 species exceed the >50% threshold with the implementation of just five complementary strategies at a cost of $126m over 20 years. The likelihood of meeting recovery objectives rarely exceeded 70% and two species failed to reach the >50% threshold. Our findings underscore the need to consider the cost, benefit, and feasibility of management strategies when developing recovery plans in order to prioritize implementation in a timely and cost-effective manner. K E Y W O R D Scomplementarity, cost-effectiveness, critical habitat, expert elicitation, multiobjective optimization, multispecies conservation, Priority Threat Management, priority-setting, recovery planning, SARA, Saskatchewan, South of the Divide, species at risk, structured decision making, triageThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Population reinforcement accelerates subadult recruitment rates in an endangered freshwater turtle

“…Evaluating conservation interventions is critical to inform management decisions and allocate limited funds (Enneson & Litzgus, 2008;Martin et al, 2018). Here, we applied a site-specific experimental approach to compare fitness between captive-reared and wild-hatched individuals, as has been done elsewhere (Musil et al, 2009;Nussear et al, 2012;Attum et al, 2013;Nagy et al, 2015).…”

Prioritize diversity or declining species? Trade-offs and synergies in spatial planning for the conservation of migratory birds in the face of land cover change

“…However, prioritizing areas of high species diversity will largely exclude regions where focal species are currently declining most strongly; many of these species are the focus of species-specific conservation efforts on the breeding grounds (ESA 1973, SARA 2002) but our results point to the importance of protection and restoration of habitat in the northern Andes in particular for the effective conservation of these species. Although our findings represent starting points for decision-making, additional research that includes socio-economic data, projected outcomes of management interventions (e.g., Martin et al, 2018; Naidoo et al, 2006; Wilson et al, 2006), and incorporates resident taxa would improve the ability to identify the most cost-effective and feasible actions for conservation depending on current and projected future land cover changes.…”

“…Stemming the unprecedented rates of current biodiversity loss (Ceballos et al 2017; Pimm et al, 2014) requires strategic and sustained investment in conservation, but socio-economic constraints make difficult choices inevitable (Martin et al, 2018; Wilson et al, 2006). Although sophisticated decision-support tools can inform such choices, the selection of a conservation target is a critical initial step that will profoundly shape outcomes (e.g.…”

“…For example, prioritizing high species diversity may be considered a proactive approach to conserving areas of high biodiversity value, whereas targeting areas with a smaller number of species in rapid decline could be viewed as a more reactive response to species in need of immediate conservation attention ( cf . Myers et al, 2000; Martin et al, 2018). In this paper, we compare the consequences of proactive vs. reactive approaches for area-based conservation strategies for Neotropical migratory birds during the non-breeding season in the Western Hemisphere.…”

Listening and watching: Do camera traps or acoustic sensors more efficiently detect wild chimpanzees in an open habitat?

“…Typically, conservation planners focus efforts on the most diverse or vulnerable species or else those suffering from intense human activity. To provide critical data that reveal patterns of species distribution over time, systematic monitoring is necessary to assess the impacts of management decisions and evaluate wildlife recovery (Akçakaya et al, ; Martin et al, ). However, in practice, wildlife monitors must overcome numerous challenges, especially when direct observations are nearly impossible, for example when studying nocturnal, cryptic, elusive or hunted species that have changed their activity pattern/behaviour.…”