Don Lyons

Dr. Don Lyons comes to Audubon's Seabird Institute from Oregon State University, where he has worked on seabird science and conservation for 20 years as a graduate student, post-doc, and Assistant Professor in the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Sciences. He is involved with many projects directly derived from SRP methods or closely aligned with current SRP interests. These include restoring seabird colonies using social attraction and understanding the relationship between seabirds and forage fish. His background as an electrical engineer and seabird biologist help him further research on tracking seabird foraging, dispersal, and migration using both banding and electronic tagging and assessing the impacts of changes in ocean climate on seabird breeding success and population resiliency.

In recent years, he has provided leadership with projects of great conservation relevance such as colony restoration for the critically endangered Chinese Crested Tern in Asia, investigations of the steep decline of Aleutian Terns in Alaska, and reduction of conflicts between Caspian Terns and threatened salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest. He is also an educator, teaching courses in seabird biology at Oregon State University.