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A Strategy for Prioritizing Threats and Recovery Actions for At-Risk Species

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Abstract

Ensuring the persistence of at-risk species depends on implementing conservation actions that ameliorate threats. We developed and implemented a method to quantify the relative importance of threats and to prioritize recovery actions based on their potential to affect risk to Mojave desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii). We used assessments of threat importance and elasticities of demographic rates from population matrix models to estimate the relative contributions of threats to overall increase in risk to the population. We found that urbanization, human access, military operations, disease, and illegal use of off highway vehicles are the most serious threats to the desert tortoise range-wide. These results suggest that, overall, recovery actions that decrease habitat loss, predation, and crushing will be most effective for recovery; specifically, we found that habitat restoration, topic-specific environmental education, and land acquisition are most likely to result in the greatest decrease in risk to the desert tortoise across its range. In addition, we have developed an application that manages the conceptual model and all supporting information and calculates threat severity and potential effectiveness of recovery actions. Our analytical approach provides an objective process for quantifying threats, prioritizing recovery actions, and developing monitoring metrics for those actions for adaptive management of any at-risk species.

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Acknowledgments

We thank R. Steidl, E. Zylstra, J. Henk, A. Desmarais, C. Mullen, and M. Scott for their helpful reviews, and E. McCoy, K. Ralls, M. Reed, J. Fraser, and B. Williams for their helpful advice throughout the project. This manuscript was greatly improved by suggestions from two anonymous reviewers. The research summarized in this paper was performed with support from a Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act’s Conservation Initiatives grant, Fort Irwin National Training Center, the Bureau of Land Management, and the California Energy Commission’s PIER Environmental Program. The findings and conclusions in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or other entities who provided support for this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Desert Tortoise Recovery Office, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2493 Portola Road Suite B, Ventura, CA, 93003, USA

    Catherine R. Darst

  2. Redlands Institute, University of Redlands, Redlands, CA, 92373, USA

    Philip J. Murphy & Nathan W. Strout

  3. School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA

    Steven P. Campbell

  4. Desert Tortoise Recovery Office, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Reno, NV, 89502, USA

    Kimberleigh J. Field, Linda Allison & Roy C. Averill-Murray

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  1. Catherine R. Darst
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  2. Philip J. Murphy
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  7. Roy C. Averill-Murray
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Correspondence to Catherine R. Darst.

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Darst, C.R., Murphy, P.J., Strout, N.W. et al. A Strategy for Prioritizing Threats and Recovery Actions for At-Risk Species. Environmental Management 51, 786–800 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-012-0007-3

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