MetaModeling toolbox for species risk assessment, population management, and conservation planning Home

Conservation Forecasting

New computer tools allow forecasting of populations, species, and environments through the use of simulation models, analytical models, spreasheets, and other tools. Such models facilitate the description of situations and issues, identification of hypothesized relationships, assembly of data, specification of assumptions, projection of trajectories, analysis of threats, sensitivity testing of uncertainty, comparison of options, and identification of expected outcomes. This website was developed to provide information about and access to software tools that assist with species conservation assessments and planning.

Licensing and cost

At this time, all software distributed on this site (but not including software that might be available on other sites under "LINKS") is distributed for free for the use by individuals, academic institutions, and not-for-profit organizations. The software and any downloaded manuals can be further distributed without modification and at no cost to other such individuals and organizations. However, all the software and manuals are copyrighted (mostly by Chicago Zoological Society or the IUCN SSC Conservation Breeding Specialist Group) and may not be sold or represented as one's own work. Published uses of the software should cite the software appropriately. However, the continued development and free distribution of these tools will depend on the support of users.

Please see the Support Conservation page to see how you can make the difference.

The programs are distributed with no guarantee that the methods perform as intended or described, that the computer codes are without bugs that could influence results, or that the programs are suitable for any particular purpose.

Partners and Sponsors of the Species Conservation Toolkit Initiative

Vortex10.org site built by Robert Lacy and JoAnna Kelly