We present a novel framework for triaging (prioritizing and discarding) data to conserve resources for a speaker identification (SID) system. Our work is motivated by applications that require a SID system to process an overwhelming volume of audio data. We design a triage filter whose goal is to conserve recognizer resources while preserving relevant content. We propose triage methods that use signal quality assessment tools, a scaled-down version of the main recognizer itself, and a fusion of these measures. We define a new precision-based measure of effectiveness for our triage framework. Our experimental results with the 35-speaker tactical SID corpus bear out the validity of our approach.