What cause the extinction of the dodo?
As with many animals that have evolved in isolation from significant predators, the dodo was entirely fearless of people, and this, in combination with its flightlessness, made it easy prey for humans. This led to the popular opinion that the dodo was wiped out by human hunting. However journals are full of reports regarding the bad taste and tough meat of the dodo, while other local species such as the Red Rail were praised for their taste. So the idea that the dodo was hunted to extinction by sailors is not considered likely. However, when humans first arrived on Mauritius, they also brought with them other animals that had not existed on the island before, including dogs, pigs, cats, rats, and Crab-eating Macaques, which plundered the dodo nests, while humans destroyed the forests where the birds made their homes. Currently, the impact these animals – especially the pigs and macaques – had on the dodo population is considered to have been more severe than that of hunting.
