Although Mauritius and Tasmania are thousands of kilometres apart, they share a connection that can only be described as ironic.
The islands have extinct species as unofficial symbols of identity – Mauritius the most famous bird to vanish, the dodo, and Tasmania, the most famous extinct mammal, the fabled Tasmanian tiger or thylacine.
The tiger may be long gone but it still appears as a logo for government business, and is featured on our car number plates. In Mauritius, the dodo is featured on coins and banknotes, and the Mauritian coat of arms.
“They’ve become our de facto national bird but there’s a real irony to Mauritians reiterating such a sad story of extinction,” says the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation.
However, there’s another side to the Mauritian story: one of hope, dedication and conservation success. This one is centred on another bird – just as emblematic, but living. The once critically endangered Mauritian kestrel has made a comeback after being down to a mere handful of birds.
Dutch sailors first started decimating the Mauritian island habitats in the 1600s when they colonised the archipelago in the Indian Ocean. Now only 1.3 per cent of good-quality native forest remains. The flightless dodo epitomised this hapless human plundering of island, having not evolved defences to the flurry of introduced mammalian predators that ensued – homo sapiens included. The last dodo was reported dead in the 1680s, and many other species followed, but the legend of the dodo has lived on worldwide.
Following the demise of the dodo, Mauritius lost its only owl and in the 1970s it looked like another bird of prey, the kestrel, was to follow. But the fight by a determined band of conservationists to save the bird has turned into one of the world’s greatest conservation success stories. And the species is now boosting eco-tourism to the island because it can easily been seen on bird-watching tours.
The fight to save the bird has also led to the foundation of the first national park in Mauritius, protecting the island’s remaining forest habitat and the smaller birds and reptiles it feeds on. It has also spurred on efforts to save three other endangered species, the pink pigeon, echo parakeet and a finch-like bird, the Mauritian fody.
The first step to saving the kestrel was to harvest eggs from the remaining wild birds, hatch chicks by hand and release them into the wild. At the same time predator-proof nesting boxes were designed and these have proved so successful, there are now about 350 birds in the wild.
Back in Tasmania, the state lost a bird species along with the tiger, the Tasmanian emu, in the 1800s. Now in the 21st century two of our birds, the orange-bellied and swift parrot, are on the critically endangered list.
The conservation example from Mauritius could show the way for our own conservation efforts.