McNair Student’s Research Helping to Save Endangered Species

Editor’s Note: This is an edited version of a feature that ran in the Adrian Daily Telegram in October 2012. Used with permission. Written by John Mulcahy. Photos by Mike Dickie.

A small, green and yellow songbird with a distinct white ring around its eye has become an important part of Siena Heights University student Olivia Smith’s life.

Called the Saipan bridled white-eye, the native of the Mariana Islands in the northern Pacific Ocean is an endangered species thanks to the brown tree snake, introduced to Guam shortly after World War II. The bird no longer exists on Guam and is found only on three other Mariana islands.

Smith, a biology major at SHU, has been studying the bridled white-eye at the Toledo Zoo, where nine of the 24 members of the species in captivity live. The goal is to help the birds successfully reproduce and raise offspring in captivity, a safeguard in case the species goes extinct in the wild.

“What I’m focusing on is the captive (bird) conservation effort,” Smith said.

Smith was invited by Toledo Zoo curator of birds Robert Webster to present her findings at an Association of Zoos and Aquariums Avian Scientific Advisory Group passerine (song bird) workshop Oct. 12-14, 2012, in Denver, an experience Smith called “really great.”

Smith was an intern at the Toledo Zoo in summer 2011, stayed on as a volunteer, then asked if she could do research there. She is focused on what conditions the bridled white-eye needs to successfully produce offspring that make it to adulthood. So far, that has not happened with the birds in captivity.

Smith’s main technique has been observation, plus she visited zoos in Louisville, Ky., and Memphis, Tenn., two of the three other zoos that have the bridled white-eye. She also conducted a survey on how the birds are fed, housed and taken care of at other zoos that either have or had the birds.

So far, steps taken to help the birds successfully reproduce include providing the right nesting material, simulating the Mariana rainy season through misting, and now, embarking on a program of breeding crickets, fruitflies, mealworms and bean beetles to feed the birds.

“If they don’t have the right diet, they’re not healthy and they can’t reproduce,” Smith said.

Other strategies have been keeping the birds off exhibit and separating breeding pairs from the other birds to relieve stress.

Recently, a bird at the Toledo Zoo was discovered sitting on two eggs, Smith said.

Webster said Smith’s contributions have been important to the zoo, especially providing the observation that other zoo staff may not have time to do.
“Olivia has observed things that I never thought of,” Webster said.

For instance, he said, she observed two hens with the same male companion sitting on one nest. That kind of information could be important in the effort to help the birds in the wild.

“Cracking this particular code will take all the brains we can get, and Olivia has a wonderful brain,” Webster said.

Smith also is in Siena’s McNair Scholars Program, which helps low-income-first-generation and minority college students, and which paid for Smith’s trip to Denver. She was a 4-H member and her family had rabbits, ducks, chickens, dogs, a parakeet, hamsters and, for a while, a horse as she grew up, she said.

“I really loved animals,” she said of her decision to study biology.

Patricia Wallace, director of SHU’s McNair Scholars program, said she sometimes finds conferences at which McNair students present research, but Smith’s case was different.

“She was invited by the Toledo Zoo to do this,” Wallace said. “That’s a whole different level.”

Smith, who graduated in May 2013, is applying to medical schools, but she also is considering a career in bird research.

“I think I might be better off going that route because I’m more passionate about it,” she said.

Smith thinks it’s important that the white-eye be saved from extinction, particularly since it was humans who introduced the snake that almost wiped it out in its natural environment.

“I think it’s important we take responsibility for it,” she said.