Years ago, I hiked to the top of a mountain in Hawai‘i to see a bird most people will never encounter. The ‘Akiapōlā‘au, a Hawaiian honeycreeper with a brilliant yellow belly and a long-curved beak, had once been more widespread. But disease and habitat loss had driven it higher and higher into the last remaining pockets of native forest. I remember the quiet of that place, broken only by a single warbling call in the tree overhead. The experience was brief, beautiful, and hard won—and it stayed with me. It shaped the path I would follow. As a field scientist,…