96 J. S. Tripovich et al.
TABLE 4 Format of questions put to workshop participants in the expert elicitation process.
We are in the Greater Blue Mountains. Imagine 20 nests, within each of which eggs have just been laid this year by wild females. Imagine the same thing in the subsequent 4 years, so thatwe have a total of 100 nests (with eggs) over 5 years. For all 100 nests, assumewe implement IDEA Xprior to egg-laying & that it is maintained throughout incubation, hatching, provisioning of young and fledging. If we were to implement IDEA X, of the 100 nests, in how many will at least one egg hatch? Provide a plausible lower-bound estimate _____ Provide a plausible upper-bound estimate _____ How confident are you that the truth will lie between your lower& upper bounds (50–100%)? ____% Provide a best estimate (between your lower & upper bounds) _____ Of the 100 nests, in howmany will at least one individual fledge? Provide a plausible lower-bound estimate _____ Provide a plausible upper-bound estimate _____ How confident are you that the truth will lie between your lower & upper bounds (50–100%)? ____% Provide a best estimate (between your lower & upper bounds) _____
mammalian predators and noisy miners, the absence of strong contrasts in the payoffs of ideas aimed at mitigating these threats (Fig. 2) suggests this expenditure is not gen- erally warranted. In contrast, the provision of supplemen- tary nesting material may be worthwhile. The payoff of this idea was not formally assessed in the workshop. How- ever, participants noted it would cost little to deploy and could have non-trivial benefits. Finally, the modest improvements in recruitment rates
under realistic nest detection scenarios and best estimates for nest success (Table 6) prompted broader discussion amongst workshop participants regarding what other ave- nues could be explored. New ideas presented by participants late in the discussion process (and beyond the scope of the expert assessment here) included increased investment and effort in detection, wider exploration of acoustic control aimed at displacing avian and (possibly) mammalian pre- dators, and taking breeding pairs into captivity upon de- tection, with release post-fledging.
Future planning
(2) protection of high-value sites (e.g. declaration of an Area of Outstanding Biodiversity Value under the New South Wales Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016; excluded because this is an administrative action that, although probably improving the availability of resources for imple- mentation, does not in itself lead to material changes in outcomes); (3) examining site-specific threats (e.g. acoustic monitoring of predators) prior to the release of captive- bred individuals (excluded because the merit of investing in acquiring information on site-specific threats depends on whether there are strong contrasts in beliefs about the intensity of different threats and the effectiveness of actions aimed at threat mitigation); and (4) supplementary resources, such as nesting material (excluded because the elicitation exercise was restricted to the period from the time of egg-laying to the time of fledging). Although there might be circumstances in which it is worth collecting data on the density of avian predators,
The results fromthe expert elicitation processwere discussed and an action tree was developed to help communicate and guide the implementation of nest protection methods (Fig. 3). This shows the preferred methods from the expert elicitation (from both of the scenarios that considered the individual and combined interventions), and the interven- tions that require further research and discussion. The cur- rent methods for nest protection are lethal control of non-threatened predators (such as noisy miners) and tree collaring. The purpose of this tool is to provide guidance to a nest warden who would evaluate the threats to nest suc- cess in an area and then follow the decision flowchart to guide the implementation of the appropriate interventions.
Discussion
We present a nest protection framework using an expert elicitation process that evaluated interventions to decrease avian and mammalian predation, mitigate the effects of
FIG. 1 An example of judgements provided by 12 experts, together with the pooled judgement, in response to the question: ‘Of 100 unprotected nests of recently released regent honeyeaters Anthochaera phrygia, in how many will at least one individual fledge?’ Judgements include 90% credible intervals (see text for details). Names have been anonymized.
Oryx, 2025, 59(1), 91–100 © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605324000942
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