7/2/2023 0 Comments Real dodo bird skeleton![]() However, humans were not the only predators. Its consumption became common and most appreciated by those living on the island. So it was with lack of fears and child-like innocence that those birds greeted the first settlers, the Dutch, in 1598. ![]() They were passive creatures even when approached by human visitors for the first time. The Dodo birds had no experience of any types of predators before the arrival of settlers in the island. This is how the fauna and flora of the island deteriorated including also the Dodo.ĭue to its short wings and bulky body the dodo could not fly or flee in the face of danger and as such the Dodo was a very easy prey. The latter thus had to find some food sources inland itself in order to feed themselves. The human population of Mauritius increased drastically -sailors, invalids, convicts and slaves came to settle on the island. Forests were destroyed in order to make way for imported crops such as sugar cane, rice, tobacco, indigo, vegetables and citrus trees, which were planted at the base of the mountains. The Dutch eventually decided to settle in Mauritius in 1634, and they built a fort near to the place where they had originally landed. ![]() The Portuguese rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, and thus became the first recorded Europeans to sail into the Indian Ocean. The small island of Mauritius remained uninhabited by man for thousands of years, apparently because the island is in the middle of the large Indian Ocean, and was not on a major sea route.Īccording to history, around 1000 AD Arabs were sailing and trading along the African coast as far south as Mozambique and the Comoros Islands, and they probably called on Mauritius, although there is no mention of it on their early maps. ![]()
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