However, it is widely accepted that although humans did kill large numbers of the dodo population, it was mammals introduced to Mauritius by human settlers that were ultimately to blame for the bird’s decline and eventual extinction. ![]() Sailors who stopped at the island did hunt dodos for food. The islands, unexplored until this time, were used as a stopover point en-route through the Indian Ocean for spice traders and later became a Dutch penal colony. ![]() Why did the dodo become extinct?ĭutch sailors first spotted the dodo at the end of the 1500s, with the first recorded observations made in 1598. Less than 100 years after these first sightings, what caused these hook-beaked flightless giants to disappear forever? Read on, as we attempt to piece together the reasons for one of the most famous examples of species decline ever recorded. Later visitors to the island did not mention the unusual birds, a fact that historians use as a basis to judge when dodos became extinct.ĭutch sailors were the first to spot the “great quantity of foules twise as bigge as swans” in 1598, and later observations noted the birds’ trusting and serene nature when being approached and captured. The last recorded sighting of a dodo was by Dutch sailor Volkert Evertsz, who was shipwrecked on Amber Island, off the coast of Mauritius in 1662. But how much do we know about when they became extinct, and is it even possible to accurately state when the last dodo on the planet died? Read on to learn what our research into these questions found out. ![]() With no records of living dodos beyond the end of the 17th century, they are one of the world’s best-known examples of an extinct species. “As dead as a dodo” is a familiar saying, used to indicate that a person or a situation has gone way beyond hope of revival.
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