Expert opinion elicitation and pathogen scoring
To incorporate value-based judgements into the weighting of the criteria in this assessment (Havelaar et al., 2010; Krause, 2008; Walshe & Burgman, 2010), potential stakeholder-experts were identified based on their interest in, influence on, and valuable knowledge of the live baitfish pathway (Jakob-Hoff et al., 2014). Identified experts were then validated by eligibility criteria including: current professional position and years of experience related to fish health, aquatic invasive species, or the production of live baitfish for recreational angling. Stakeholder-experts were also asked to identify other potential participants for our study, a process called “snowball sampling”, by which members of a narrowly-defined group identify other members of that group (Hald et al., 2016). Willing and informed stakeholder-experts were asked to assign a weight to each criterion such that all weights added to one (Cox, Revie, & Sanchez, 2012; Krause, 2008). The expert weighting exercise was administered in the online survey platform Qualtrics (Qualtrics, Provo, UT 2019).