As a result of oil spills endangered species may be killed. This paper discusses issues associated with scaling restoration projects that would compensate for mortality of an endangered species due to an oil spill. We illustrate our concerns using hypothetical data and a simple stochastic population dynamics model meant to (roughly) approximate Marbeled Murrelets (a federally-listed west- coast seabird) killed as result of a spill. The paper discusses the implications of possible outcomes with very long run implications (i.e. extinction), for which conservation biologists have generated various approaches for guiding management decisions in which discounting is not used. These are contrasted with the usual scaling approach, Resource Equivalency Analysis, which uses (expected) discounted bird years (EDBYs).

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