Globally, at least 40% of bird species are in decline and one in eight species are at risk of extinction (Birdlife International 2018a). Owing to the complex and interconnected causes of species’ declines, it is recognised that effective conservation requires a holistic approach that encompasses a wide variety of disciplines (Liu et al. 2015). However, some disciplines have been more readily adopted by conservationists than others. The importance of genetic factors for species’ persistence is well established theoretically and empirically, but genetic data are consistently missing from conservation management planning. A role for genetics in conservation was first suggested in 1974 (Frankel 1974), and conservation genetics became established as a discipline in the early 1980s (Soulé and Wilcox 1980; Frankel and Soulé 1981; Schonewald-Cox et al. 1983). There are now journals dedicated explicitly to the subject (eg Conservation Genetics) and a multitude of publications demonstrating the real-world importance of genetics to conservation, including of bird species (Frankham 2005, 2010; Mackintosh and Briskie 2005; Grueber et al. 2010; Allendorf 2017; Taylor et al. 2017a). In spite of this, outside the USA, the vast majority of species conservation plans do not include genetic considerations (Pierson et al. 2016; Cook and Sgrò 2017). This has created an implementation gulf between genetics and conservation that has been termed the conservation genetics gap (Taylor et al. 2017b). The conservation genetics gap is seemingly driven by multiple factors. Historically, debates over the importance of genetics to conservation in the scientific literature (eg Lande 1988; Caro and Laurenson 1994; Caughley 1994) may have dissuaded practitioners from considering genetic factors in conservation plans, steering them towards focussing on more pressing concerns such as invasive species (Jamieson et al. 2006). The use of field-specific jargon in much of the genetics literature may also be responsible for its lack of adoption as a practical conservation tool (Hoban et al. 2013). More recent data suggest that conservation practitioners do see the value of genetics to conservation, however practitioners often feel they lack the knowledge to include genetic data effectively in their management plans, and do not always know what issues genetics can be applied to (Taylor et al. 2017b; Holderegger et al. 2019). Thus, showcasing the ways genetic data can be used to conserve threatened species is important for increasing the implementation of conservation genetics and creating more holistic, and thus effective, species management strategies.