ists Set Out to Discover How Dodo Died
How did the dodo die out? Scientists in Mauritius launched a project
on Wednesday to discover why the giant bird became extinct.
Most theories blame settlers who found the plump flightless bird on the Indian
Ocean island in the 16th century and began to hunt it relentlessly. In an
attempt to provide a scientific answer, the Dodo Research Programme plans to
study fossils from a mass dodo grave unearthed in southern Mauritius last
October and an adjacent site, using carbon dating techniques and DNA analysis.
The aim is to understand the dodo's world in the 10,000 years before humans
discovered Mauritius, then to determine the impact human colonisers had when
they arrived.
Good idea. As we see at Easter Island the simple formula of "people come and
kill everything" is probably oversimplified.