Stephanie Tyler


Stephanie Tyler is a British ornithologist, zoologist, naturalist, conservationist, and author from Monmouthshire. She is particularly known for her work on Dippers and the preservation of river habitats.

Career

Tyler gained her PhD in Zoology at University of Cambridge, where she also met and married Lyndsay Tyler, a veterinarian. Tyler's doctoral thesis was on the free-range ponies in the New Forest. Following her marriage, Tyler moved with her family to Wiltshire where she conducted a study of the area's Grey Wagtails and became the most prolific female British bird ringer. The Tyler family moved first to the United Arab Emirates and then to Ethiopia in 1973.
In Ethiopia Tyler continued her work on bird ringing and made monthly contributions to the newsletter of the
Ethiopian Wildlife and Natural History Society. Tyler also provided articles and illustrations for the conservation journal Agazen, which was used in around 2,000 schools in Ethiopia. The Tylers also led natural history tours of the area. Tyler also returned to her work on Wagtails funded by the British Ornithological Union and investigated ecological factors that affected the distribution of both local and migratory birds in Ethiopia.
From May 1976, Tyler, together with her husband and two children, were held captive for 8 months by rebels in Tigray. Despite considerable hardship, Tyler continued to make observations of local bird-life and has credited her ornithological skills with helping her family to cope with captivity. Her observations were published in the Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club.
On her return to the UK, Tyler and her family moved to Monmouthshire where Tyler worked for Gwent Wildlife Trust and then the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds as the Conservation Officer for Wales. From the 1980s, Tyler was a committee member of Gwent Ornithological Society, regional representative for the British Trust for Ornithology, and joint plant recorder for Monmouthshire for the South East Wales Biodiversity Records Centre.
In the 1990s, Tyler spent five years in Botswana where she worked on nest card-filling for the new BirdLife Botswana.
Tyler was a Trustee of the Welsh Ornithological Society for eight years and is currently the chair of the Monmouthshire Meadows Group.

Honours