When Avery Tilley was pursuing his undergraduate degree at Michigan State University, he worked on a gray wolf research project tied to the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (Ojibwe) in northeastern Minnesota.
In addition to collaring wolves to track their movements, Tilley assessed their health through blood samples and other veterinary treatments. Most research teams simply gave the wolves identifying numbers before release to aid tracking, but Tilley and his group used an alternate identification method: Ojibwe names. Once a wolf retreated into the wilderness, his team also would burn medicinal plants used by local tribes, such as white sage or tobacco, to cleanse the area.
It’s a philosophy called “Two-Eyed Seeing,” a guiding principle sweeping modern Indigenous groups that brings together western science and Native American culture. As a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, Tilley carries the practice with him throughout his education and research.
“I understood the principle behind it, but it was difficult for me to put into practice,” said Tilley, a third-year doctoral student in the University of Georgia’s College of Veterinary Medicine. “I hadn’t really seen it done much in wildlife management or in tribal wildlife medicine.”
Although he grew up in North Texas where his father served on an Air Force base, Tilley spent much of his childhood visiting Cherokee relatives in Muskogee, Oklahoma, to maintain his connection to the culture. One conversation stuck with him.
“My grandfather told me a story about how bison are symbolic to the Cherokee,” Tilley said. “They were almost wiped out completely but were able to come back stronger. He said, ‘That’s the same thing that happened to us—even after all this loss, so many things we don’t have anymore, we still have bison, and our stories are interwoven.’”
He carries this mindset into everything he does, whether providing veterinary care to wolves near Lake Superior or advocating for the protection of day geckos on the other side of the world.
The gecko with a fork on its back
When Tilley was 17 years old, he was set on going to Madagascar.
It began when he visited Duke University through its Talent Identification Program, a gifted education program for high schoolers. He got to see the Duke Lemur Center, falling in love with the tree-dwelling native of Madagascar.
After looking into several programs that wouldn’t accept participants under 18, Tilley eventually signed up as a volunteer with SEED Madagascar, a British charity specializing in conservation. They sent him to St. Luce, a remote fishing village of about 2,500 people.
It wasn’t a lemur that stole Tilley’s heart during his one-month visit, however. It was a day gecko—specifically, the Phelsuma antanosy, a little green gecko with an orange pattern on its back. Locals referred to it as “the gecko with a fork on its back.”
Tilley described the gecko as “micro-endemic,” meaning it can only be found around the forest of St. Luce. It has an estimated population of only about 3,500.
More recently, a mining company bought most of the forest surrounding St. Luce and plans to clear it within the next seven to 10 years, wiping out habitat for both the gecko and the pandanus, an aloe-like plant on which the geckos rely for just about everything—from food to egg laying.
“They probably don’t play a huge ecological role. It’s not like the whole forest is going to collapse without this one gecko species,” Tilley said. “But that’s also part of the point. We don’t always fully understand how each species fits into the larger system. Nature is complex and interconnected in ways we might not yet grasp. Even if this gecko isn’t a keystone species, it still holds intrinsic value to the community.
“Nature,” he said, “is beautiful simply because it exists, and that alone is reason enough to protect it.”
In 2023, Tilley became the first Indigenous recipient of the National Geographic Young Explorer Award. With National Geographic’s support and in partnership with SEED, Tilley launched “Project Phelsuma,” an initiative to relocate the geckos to a protected patch of forest only half a kilometer away.
The project brought in other researchers to collect genetic samples of the gecko to determine its status as a separate species. While the work is ongoing, a study published last year found striking consistency in the gecko’s physical traits, evidence that it may indeed stand alone as a species found nowhere else on Earth.
Working with villagers in St. Luce capturing geckos for research and relocation, Tilley said he sees the local community as co-leaders of the project, not just participants, and emphasized that the relocation effort wouldn’t be possible without them.
He recalls one villager in particular commenting, “It would be a shame if the [gecko] goes extinct and the future generations would not know what made St. Luce so special.”
“The gecko relies on the forest and these pandanus plants so closely, and the community is somewhat the same—relying on the forest for food, for wood, for charcoal,” Tilley said.
Between traps and traditions
As a wildlife researcher, Tilley loves all species. When he got the chance to work on a gray wolf study during his undergraduate years, however, he jumped at the chance.
“I got really lucky,” he said. “In the wildlife world, wolves are considered to be one of the coolest animals you can work with.”
But it wasn’t just the opportunity to work with such intelligent and strong creatures. Tilley also saw how the Ojibwe and other tribes around Lake Superior revered wolves, seeing them as cultural relatives and symbols of resilience. Many Indigenous people of the area see animals like wolves, eagles, moose, and bears as living connections to their ancestors, he said. It was a reminder of the words his grandfather shared about the Cherokee and the bison.
The goal of the project, which is still ongoing in Minnesota, is to better understand wolf movement on reservations and surrounding lands. Tilley, however, approached it through a veterinary lens, trying to determine effects of different anesthetic drug combinations on wolves to reduce stress and allow faster recovery after being immobilized by researchers to apply tracking collars.
The project has allowed him to connect to his Indigenous roots and incorporate them into his research. He realized that conservation isn’t just about science, but also about respect for nature and cultural values.
“We’re really trying to demonstrate physical ways to bring both [science and culture] together into a plan that keeps the animal healthy and safe during this procedure, and Indigenously respect and honor the animal at the same time,” he said.
Creating a space for Native Americans in veterinary medicine
According to the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges, less than 0.6% of current veterinary students in the United States identify as Native American, a number that staggered Tilley when he first heard it.
He took it as an opportunity. Teaming with a group of other Indigenous veterinary students, he co-founded Natives in Vet Med in February 2024, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides mentorship, resources, externship funding, and community clinics on reservations.
“It’s about encouraging Indigenous youth that veterinary school is a possibility. It’s hard to get into and it’s hard to go through, but they have a support network behind them,” he said. “Putting on low-cost clinics and seeing younger community members come up—it’s a really beautiful picture to be able to see them and teach them how veterinary medicine works.”
Tilley has also been a member of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) since he was an undergraduate and will be going to the society’s national conference later this year to talk about his wolf research, Two-Eyed Seeing, and Natives in Vet Med.
Throughout his academic career, Tilley’s Cherokee identity has motivated him to be visible in science spaces where Indigenous perspectives are often excluded. He uses that visibility to advocate for Indigenous knowledge, representation, and culturally respectful conservation practices.
Looking to the future, he hopes to work in tribal wildlife veterinary medicine, a specific veterinary field that works with tribal wildlife agencies to care for native species. In the meantime, Tilley continues to blend his Cherokee identity into his research and veterinary practices. Through Two-Eyed Seeing, he is showing what conservation can look like when science and identity walk side by side.
