Many nations have laws to identify and\u00a0protect imperiled species and their\u00a0ecosystems. In the United States, actions\u00a0taken under the Endangered\u00a0Species Act (ESA) have prevented\u00a0many extinctions, but few listed species\u00a0have recovered to the point where they\u00a0can have the ESA protections removed (1,\u00a02). One reason for this [among many (3)] is\u00a0a shortfall in funding, raising a conundrum\u00a0for agencies responsible for species recovery:\u00a0Should resources be allocated toward species facing imminent extinction or species whose\u00a0long-term survival can most benefit from investment?\u00a0Some argue that the latter strategy\u00a0is ethically unsound because it may abandon\u00a0species with little hope of long-term recovery\u00a0[for example, (4)], even when science\u00a0suggests that the former strategy may miss\u00a0opportunities to prevent species from ever \u00a0experiencing the risk of imminent extinction\u00a0(2). We suggest that framing recovery prioritization\u00a0as a resource allocation problem\u00a0provides a structure to facilitate constructive\u00a0debate about such important questions. We\u00a0discuss here the merits of an explicit resource\u00a0allocation framework and introduce a prototype\u00a0decision tool [(5); see supplementary\u00a0materials for details] that we developed with\u00a0the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to\u00a0facilitate transparent and efficient recovery\u00a0allocation decisions.<\/p>\n