ALBEMARLE COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) -- Ashley Dayer, a Virginia Tech professor and conservationist, began searching for one of the world's rarest birds in Maui nearly 25 years ago.

At the time of her search in 2002, the po'ouli, a small Hawaiian black-faced honeycreeper, had only three known individuals of the species remaining, whose home ranges did not overlap with one another.

Dayer and her team were working on the Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project, which involved being dropped off by helicopters into the Hawaiian rainforest for weeks at a time with the goal of capturing a po'ouli and relocating it in hopes it would pair with another.

Dayer and her team successfully captured one bird, placed a radio tag on its back, and transported it to the home range of another. The team stayed overnight

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