As this year’s “Canada’s New Noah” scholarship winner, Laura shares her wildlife conservation field work with us from Mauritius. See more of her posts here.
One of the things I’ve found the most interesting about living in Mauritius is that their entirely extinct dodo bird, Raphus cucullatus, is everywhere. It starts when the entry card you fill out on your flight is covered in dodo drawings. Shops sell row upon row of tiny dodo figurines in all shapes and sizes, dodo jewelry, dodo towels, dodo shirts, dodo rum, and products stamped with the colourful icon “Made in Dodoland”. You can stay at Dodo Apartments, grab at beer at Flying Dodo brewery, and even play the Mauritius-themed escape game Dodoquest, in which you can Save the Last Dodos and find a dodo egg.
But you cannot…actually see a dodo. They’ve been gone since about 1690. Except apparently in the minds of googlers, as “related searches” that pop up include “where do dodo birds live” and “dodo found 2015”. You could be forgiven for thinking the dodo is alive and well, however. It is a powerful and well-loved symbol. A stylized dodo is the logo for Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust. Their latest campaign used “The Lonely Dodo“, a tragic solitaire-playing cartoon, to fundraise for their endangered species projects. David Quammen used it in his book, poetically describing the kind of one-last-sad-dodo-dies-alone-in-a-cold-cave situation that makes conservationists feel like throwing up. This one extinct species has fascinated magazine writers, blogging scientists, academic researchers, and definitely Mauritians. Why, though? Of all the unique species Mauritius lost, at first glance it seems like an unlikely pick:
