I am conducting a choice experiment for a non-market valuation analysis. One of my attributes is an animal's population status. For the status quo option, the level for that animal's population status is ‘risk of going endangered,’ BUT this means that alternatives 1 and 2 ALWAYS outperform the status quo on the animal's population status (because the levels for the alternatives are only threatened and recovered).

Does this violate the core design of a choice experiment? Does the status quo need to be changed to threatened, one of the levels?

Can anyone share literature to help explain this?