David Boynton (1945–2007) was a leading expert on the natural history of the Hawaiian island of Kauai, especially on the Koke'e Forest and the Alakai Swamp and its wildlife. He was called "a voice for the Hawaiian wilderness," a "Guardian of the Koke'e Forest," and as an educator, "the window through which thousands of Hawai'i students learned about Hawaiian birds, plants, marine creatures, climate and much more." Boynton photographed a bird now believed extinct, the ʻŌʻōʻāʻā (Moho braccatus). He recorded the mating call of the single male, whose mate presumably did not survive Hurricane Iwa at the end of 1987. The bird, probably the last of its species, was tending an empty nest.