BBC Documentary ‘Dodo’: Greed and Consumption Lead to Destruction

In 1681, the last Dodo bird died. After that, this animal was completely extinct from the earth. In the following centuries, people could only imagine its former appearance from paintings and photographs.

The most impressive Dodo bird appeared in the illustrations of 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'. After that, the Dodo bird seemed to have become equivalent to griffins and dragons in their eyes. They believed that the Dodo bird only existed in myths and legends, but in reality, this animal never appeared in life.

The illustrations from 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'

Although many people think so, in fact, the Dodo bird did exist. After all, the complete Dodo bird skeleton in the museum cannot lie. And the Dodo bird specimen stored in Oxford University can prove 'it once existed'

From these remains, we can easily find that the Dodo bird has a strong beak and powerful hind legs. This also shows that the Dodo bird is not a clumsy and heavy creature, but a strong and flexible bird, it just can't fly. But they lived on Mauritius, this island had a lot of fruit available, so they could get enough food even without flying.

In other words, the qualities of these birds were sufficient to adapt to the local environment.

So the question is, how did these birds become extinct?

This story begins 80 years ago.

The Unflying Dutchmen

In September 1598, the Dutch merchant ship 'Amsterdam' was caught in a storm, so it was forced to moor at Mauritius Island. The crew had been drifting for many days and were almost dead of hunger. When they stepped on Mauritius Island, they seemed like a savior to them and immediately looked for food on the shore.

The arrival of these people determined the extinction of the Dodo birds.

We habitually conclude that these Dutchmen arrived on the island and the number of Dodo birds gradually decreased and eventually became extinct. Therefore, posterity logically inferred that humans hunted Dodo birds for meat, thus causing this bird species to become extinct. But the fact is, is it really like this?

Many years later, paleontologist Peter Swoll found the ruins left by the Dutch sailors. But after four years of excavation, he didn't find any Dodo bird bones. The large camp ruins only had pig bones and sheep bones.

So the question is, are people unwilling to eat Dodo bird meat?

The Forever Uncooked Dodo Bird

The Dutch sailors' diary from 400 years ago proved this point. According to their records, Dodo bird meat is very greasy. Even these starving sailors couldn't swallow it. Besides, the Dodo bird is very agile and has great strength, it's not an easy prey. If a prey is both difficult to eat and difficult to cook, and difficult to catch, only a fool would try to catch it. Moreover, there were plenty of edible plants and fruits on Mauritius Island, so people had no need to pursue the Dodo bird.

So the question is, how did these birds become extinct?

You Don't Kill a Good Thing, But It Will Kill You

Although humans are not willing to provoke the Dodo bird, the problem indicates that

Although humans did not directly kill the Dodo bird, humans' extinction of the Dodo bird was also largely due to human errorIn order to enrich their meat variety, the Dutchmen brought a large number of livestock from Europe, with European pigs and sheep being the first to be raised by the sailors on Mauritius Island. These livestock were raised in fenced areas, and some escaped the humans' control and ran into the wild, thus becoming the 'new wild pigs' on the island.

Julius Verne's novel 'Mysterious Island' recorded this scene: the protagonists set off on a wooden ship to search for another shipwrecked person at a nearby small island. On this island, there were some wild pigs and wild sheep, and after careful identification, they realized that these things were actually European pigs and sheep – just escaped the owner's confinement.

This fictional plot behind the novel is a prelude to reality. On Mauritius Island, paleontologist Peter Swoll found many pig and sheep bones. These are undeniable evidence.

These accompanying humans came to the island, they became the deadly enemies of the Dodo birds.

Pigs are omnivorous and pigs have strong bodies, they rarely encounter enemies on the island, so the Dodo birds were quickly defeated. The mating behavior of male and female birds was greatly affected, and their eggs became food for pigs. This former king of the birds had to gradually shrink its territory, and its population decreased dramatically, and finally embarked on the path of extinction.

On the beach, only footprints remained

'You don't kill a good thing, but it will kill you.' Whether it's intentional or unintentional, humans are responsible for the extinction of the Dodo bird.

Man and Nature

In order to survive, humans expanded recklessly and invaded the habitats of wild animals. In this conflict, many wild animals were extinct.

At this time, the humans who became kings and queens, were like the Dodo birds who were kings and queens on the island in the past. When natural forces such as Ebola and plague attacked, humans had no way to retaliate, and the losses were almost unbearable. It's like asking, did they ever think about it, did the Dodo birds also experience similar despair?

I don't think so.

Humans in history only get one lesson in history, and there will be no exceptions.

(Finish)

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