Applying expert elicitation of viability and persistence to a lynx species status assessment

Abstract

Abstract In 2015, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service initiated a review of the status of Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) in the contiguous United States. Available research and monitoring, while substantial, lacked information on the demographic rates, abundance, and trends necessary to complete a full viability assessment. Therefore, alternative sources of information were needed to inform the species status assessment. We designed and conducted an expert elicitation to capture the knowledge, professional judgments, and opinions of lynx experts to assess the status of, and the drivers influencing, these lynx populations. We elicited the likelihood and level of uncertainty regarding future persistence over several time frames (at years 2025, 2050, and 2100). The elicitation revealed experts' concerns that expected climate‐driven losses in habitat quality, quantity, and related factors will likely result in declines. Experts expect resident populations of lynx will persist in all five currently occupied geographic units in 2025; in 4 or 5 of the units at 2050; and in 2 or 3 units at 2100. Experts expressed a high level of uncertainty regarding the rate and extent of decline due to projected climate warming and corresponding effects to these lynx populations. In the absence of adequate monitoring data, this type of expert elicitation is a useful method to aid classification decisions, such as providing the scientific information the Service relied upon to complete the November 5, 2017 5‐year review which recommended that the lynx distinct population segment be removed from the list of threatened and endangered species.

Keywords

• endangered species
• expert elicitation
• lynx
• persistence
• species status assessment
• viability