A rare Hawaiian bird’s history guides conservationist’s research today

On Maui’s iconic volcanic slopes almost 25 years ago, Ashley Dayer searched for one of the world’s rarest birds.

The po‘ouli, a small Hawaiian black-faced honeycreeper, had only three known individuals of the species left at the time.

Helicopters dropped Dayer and her team into the Hawaiian rainforest for weeks at a time, tasked with capturing a bird and relocating it in hopes it would pair with another.

Ultimately, the effort failed, and within years the po‘ouli was extinct.

Dayer still remembers the hollow feeling of seeing its image years later at a conference. The last known bird was a specimen on display at a museum.

“Working to save the world’s rarest bird I realized conservation couldn’t succeed without people,” said Dayer, associate professor in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation. “The public didn’t even know this bird existed, much less that it was vanishing before their eyes.”

That realization shifted her career from field biology to social science, focusing on how human behavior and thought shape conservation outcomes.

A new grant for shorebird conservation

Today, that focus drives her research, and she recently received a National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant to expand conservation efforts for Atlantic Flyway shorebirds, long-distance migrants that nest, feed, and rest on beaches from Canada to South America.

These species face steep declines from disturbance, habitat loss, environmental changes, and predators. Dayer and her team use community-based social marketing to encourage small but critical behavior changes by the beach recreationists, such as keeping dogs out of nesting zones, giving birds more space, or driving vehicles farther from roped-off areas.

She collaborates with partners from New York City Parks to Maine Audubon to national wildlife refuges to Florida’s state wildlife agency, designing research-informed, locally tailored campaigns that resonate with the population in each area.

“When people understand what’s at stake, they’re often eager to help,” Dayer said. “Most of the time, it’s simply that no one has asked them in the right way.”

The new grant is a continuation of Dayer’s previous projects that include:

• Studies of dog walkers in Maine, New York, and South Carolina, followed by training partners to develop campaigns to minimize disturbance from dogs at over 10 sites in Canada and the U.S.
• Current research on people who drive on the beach in Louisiana and walk on the beach in Mississippi and Alabama, in partnership with Audubon, and funded by NOAA Restore
• A study of Caribbean waterbird monitors, in partnership with Birds Caribbean, on their experiences with human disturbances at important shorebird sites
• Creation of a shorebird reduction toolkit and numerous webinars and presentation training hundreds of conservation professionals in North and South America on this approach.

Impact in Virginia

While her research spans the Eastern Seaboard, its roots and reach extend deeply into Virginia. Early in her Virginia Tech career, she helped create Virginia’s first Wildlife Viewing Plan. Hunters, anglers, birders, hikers, and the public all had a voice in creating the plan that continues to guide the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources today.

By engaging Virginians directly, the plan opened new pathways for residents to connect with the state’s natural resources. It also provided leaders with a roadmap for expanding their relevancy to the over one-third of their population that view wildlife.

This work kick-started her research program supporting state agencies across the U.S. from Washington to Texas to Minnesota in working with wildlife viewers, now focused on accessibility in wildlife viewing.

More recently, her lab’s work on shorebird conservation has brought Virginia into larger regional and national collaborations. Coastal communities from the Eastern Shore stand to benefit as strategies tested here improve coexistence between people and birds on heavily visited beaches through efforts led by The Nature Conservancy after training by Dayer and her team.

“Virginia is where we can both test new ideas and demonstrate solutions that ripple across the entire Atlantic Flyway,” Dayer said.

A career bridging people and conservation

Dayer’s impact has been recognized with two recent honors.

The Virginia Society for Ornithology’s Jackson Abbott Award honored her contributions to bird conservation in Virginia, including the Wildlife Viewing Plan.

She also received the David Pashley Award from the North American Bird Conservation Initiative, a partnership across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. The award recognized her role in advancing the human dimensions of conservation, including establishing the first National Bird Conservation Social Science Coordinator position, which she brought to Virginia Tech nearly a decade ago.

Both awards underscore a career bridging biology and social science, ensuring conservation considers people as well as species and ecosystems.

“My work may look different from the field jobs I started with,” Dayer said. “But if we want birds to thrive, we have to understand people just as much as we understand wildlife.”