by Effie Moore Salem

Created on: August 27, 2009   Last Updated: June 02, 2010

The Dodo bird disappeared because it could not adapt to the loss of its preferred environment. The Dodo bird that lived on the island of Mauritius was first seen in the 1600s and then almost a hundred years later was not seen and has been seen since. What caused this bird to disappear from the face of the earth? It is reasonable to assume it could not adapt to its habitat being destroyed. Why should we care? From its lessons we learn not to take anything for granted. These birds had wings but could not fly? Then why did they have wings, we ask?

For the same reason domestic chickens have wings and cannot fly, the Dodo bird had useless wings. Sometime in their ancestral past both chickens and these extinct birds could fly, scientists say. Lack of use made them unnecessary and their wings stopped being useful. Yet the birds and their useless wings were useful to the sailors of the area as feed and as food for their cats and dogs. The same with chickens today, what would we do without their heart healthy white meat?

What actually caused the demise of this slandered bird? I say slandered because it is thought to have been foolish since it had wings but did not fly, having let disuse disqualify their wings. The word dodo means a foolish and unthinking person. Instead this bird that grew up to fifty pounds bedded down on the ground and built nests there for their families. When Portuguese sailors arrived on the scene in the fifteen hundreds the birds soon became less and less and then became no more than a tale told by a sailors who left words printed depicting their once abundance on the island.

Before the arrival of people on Mauritius, forty five bird species made this island home. Trees were in abundance for protection of most of the other species. Now, records show there are twenty-one species left on the island. Then, once discovered, the island became an important stopover for those trading in spices and other coveted items from the east such as tea and perfumes. No doubt the tasty meat of this extinct bird fed them all. That was not all, The Dutch started using the island to house their prisoners and this finished off the birds. None have been spotted or reported since some time around 1681.

Have we seen the last of the Dodo Birds? I am inclined to believe in miracles. I would not have said that a few paragraphs back but researching online I learned that a tree that once was a friendly benefactor to the ungainly and landed bird, was also dying out. No new sprouts of the tree had sprung up in the past three hundred years. Not since the Dodo bird left. Some insightful biologist found that the cause was lack of a symbiotic relationship between the birds and the trees. The seeds from the fruit of the tree needed to be flushed through their digestive system before they could sprout.

End of the story? Hardly. Enthusiasts such as biologists and other scientists asking the reason why and what if questions found that the turkey had similar gullets to the Dodo bird. When the fruits of the seeds from the three hundred old trees were fed to the turkeys, new plants sprouted. Of course, expounding on that story it is not too far fetched an idea to believe that once these seedlings hatch into trees the DNA from their cousins the Turkeys will again show little Dodo birds hatching.

Who knows? The birds could have simply been in hiding where they have been redesigning their wings. You can discount that last sentence but you cannot deny me from saying it. The future will be what it will be.

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