Prioritizing efficient use of resources: Simple changes to monitoring combat inefficient capture‐recapture of vulnerable skinks

Abstract Obtaining resources for conservation is one of the major challenges to its effective implementation. This challenge is amplified for lizards in Aotearoa New Zealand, where they receive meager funding for conservation management and monitoring. Regardless, long‐term monitoring is required to inform population trends, the impact of threats, and the effect of any subsequent management. Lakes skinks ( Oligosoma aff. chloronoton “West Otago”) are large ground‐dwelling skinks currently classed as Threatened – Nationally Vulnerable in Aotearoa New Zealand, though little is known regarding this species' trajectory. We compiled 9 years (2017–2025) of monitoring data from a population of Lakes skinks. The first 8 years of monitoring failed to reveal a clear trend in abundance. To resolve this problem, in 2025 we doubled survey effort for the population, resulting in a more precise estimate of abundance that indicated that the population is small and may be declining. However, this methodology is not guaranteed to generate equally precise estimates in the future, particularly because we observed declining capture rates within annual effort. We suggest that survival rates generated using between‐year mark‐recapture (photo‐ID) could provide an alternative framework by which to track the population and justify management. Producing highly precise estimates of population abundance is inherently difficult and may be impossible given current resource limitations for species that are not prioritized for active management. We suggest that there is not one ubiquitous solution to this problem and that constant assessment of whether a monitoring regime is fit for purpose is required so that effort is not wasted.