A call for structured decision making in conservation programs considering wild egg collection

Abstract

Wild egg collection can be a powerful tool in avian conservation management. It can be used to establish and augment captive breeding programs for conservation translocations, mitigate low productivity during incubation in wild populations, and further research on reproductive and environmental biology. Such benefits need to be balanced against potential risks, like detrimental demographic effects on source populations and disease transfer. A lack of thorough consideration and evaluation of associated benefits, risks, and trade-offs may prevent conservation managers from effectively utilising this powerful conservation tool, and may lead to poor management outcomes for wild populations. Structured decision making (SDM) can offer a framework for making decisions in the presence of uncertainty about how a system will respond to different management alternatives. We therefore advocate for the use of SDM to explore whether an egg collection program is a desirable management tool and, if so, to assess how new data iteratively informs decisions throughout all stages of the recovery program. Here, we review the current literature evaluating the practice of wild egg collection, provide an overview of the SDM process, and then use the whooping crane (Grus americana) as an example of how to conduct such an evaluation. Our overall aim is to provide guidance on how SDM can help develop best practice for responsible egg collection from wild populations to enable efficient and effective recovery of endangered avian species.