Rebecca Stirnemann

Rebecca Stirnemann is a passionate scientist working on endangered birds and forest conservation. She spent seven years working on protecting the native birds of Sāmoa, including the manumea or tooth-billed pigeon. She has been lucky enough to see manumea in the wild and hopes that one day their numbers will increase so others can also see this princess of the forest.

Rebecca’s research has shown that a mix of hunting by people, invasive predators such as rats and cats, and loss of forest threatens both the manumea and other native bird species. Luckily there is a great team of people working on helping the manumea.