Fig. 3.

Cumulative number of species categorized as injurious neglect (spending for recovery less than the budget recommended for recovery) whose project spending can be improved (spending equal to or greater than budget) by triaging the top 50 species in the “futile” category (where spending is greater than budget but the species has declined more than increased over the last decade). The horizontal red line is the fixed, inflation-adjusted cost of deliberate budget compression for 50 overfunded futile species. Species on the x-axis are rank-ordered by cost efficacy (from low to high spending deficits). Triage can provide funding for up to 182 species (intersection of two lines). The y-axis (cost) is on a log scale; the fixed cost of triage is ∼$17 million/year. The mean (1 SE) deficit in spending for species converted from injurious neglect to adequate is 93.5K (86.7K).