Once Mauritius was discovered by
navigators, they also found that the island was inhabited by one of the
Mauritius birds called Dodo.
The big stubby legs, short neck and
incredibly thick pecker and curved gives Dodo a funny look. The heavy
and chubby body is completed by a short tail, made of a feathers whisk.
Since she has do enemies to be afraid of, she lost her flying ability.
This is a frequent phenomenon at the
insular birds. While other Mauritius birds incapable of flying were
tireless runners, the Dodo bird was moving jiggled, like a duck. Dodo’s
brain was not very evaluated and the Mauritius birds were curiously
looking at the two legs strangers going down from ships. The sailor men
killed thousands of birds, put them in jails and made lamp oil from
them.
The rats and other
animals imported on islands were ruining the Dodo’s
nests. The exterminations of these inoffensive
Mauritius birds happened so fats that the zoologist
could not keep even one stuffed copy.
This bird would be
utile for reproduction since her weight could reach
16 kg. On Mauritius Island, the zoologists saved
more species of Mauritius birds. The Black River
Ecartament National Park was restored and became the
refuge for the obsolescent Mauritius birds called
pink dove, Mauritius kestrel and the Mauritius
parrot.
These birds saving
are owed to the famous naturalist Gerald Darrell
which was very active in the catching, saving and
reproduction of the rare animals. The Darrell’s
found made a titanic effort to save the species and
to reproduce them. Only 10 copies of Nesoenas Mayeri
(Pink dove) remained in wildness in the ‘60s.
Due to the English
and local zoologists activity, who made numerous
efforts to save the specie, the actual population of
these Mauritius Birds has more than 350 species.
The
doves are still suffering because of the beasts of
pray, that destroy their nests as well as because of
the lack of indigenous vegetation which they feed
with. The Falco Punctatos (Mauritius kestrel) are
other Mauritius birds with a tragic destiny.
At this
specie, the females and the males are painted like a
common male kestrel while on the Seychelles Island
the males and the females have the color of the
common female kestrel. In the 70’s the population of
these Mauritius birds had only 2 species in wildness
and two in captivity. The ruining of the nests by
the macaques and the DDT chemical action contributed
to the population’s decrease. The zoologists made
the impossible by restoring the obsolescent. For a
pair of wild kestrel an alcove was made in rocks for
nests, where the monkey could not get. They produced
three generations and another two were produced by
the captivity pair.
Later,
the zoologists took the eggs to place then in hatchery, replacing them with eggs
without fetuses. Today, the Mauritius kestrel population has 800 species. This
is an excellent example of saving Mauritius birds populations even in the most
difficult situations.
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