Monitoring in 2012 suggested that the Christmas Island flying-fox had declined by approximately 35% over the preceding 6 years, but more recent monitoring provides some evidence of subsequent recovery. A number of postulated threats are associated with historical decline in the flying-fox.
This project built an analytic approach to investigate the impact of multiple threats on Christmas Island flying-foxes. This project provides a template for problem formulation and group decision-making based on the cost-effectiveness of actions. We describe key elements of the approach and illustrate its application using a hypothetical vignette. The vignette is based on real challenges, including land use change and attribution difficulties arising from multiple threats and associated speculation in the payoff of candidate management actions. A spreadsheet-based decision support tool developed for the flying fox can be adapted to assist recovery teams working on management priorities for species elsewhere.