Laura Erickson’s For the Birds

Stunning news today: Researchers have announced the rediscovery of a bird believed to be extinct since 1681. And even more shocking, they found this bird over 10,000 miles from the species’ former range on Mauritius. Yes, apparently a small population of Dodoes has been discovered living right here in Duluth, Minnesota. We have Dr. William Ivory here in the studio. Welcome to “For the Birds,” Dr. Ivory.

DR. IVORY: Thank you, Laura.

LAURA: Dr. Ivory, tell us exactly what researchers have found.

DR. IVORY: Well, strange as it seems, we found definite scientific proof of a breeding population of Dodoes in the Duluth harbor.

LAURA:You’ve actually seen living Dodoes in Duluth? I must remind listeners the Dodo was a huge flightless relative of the pigeon, weighing about 30 to 50 pounds. It was discovered by Portuguese sailors on Mauritius, six or seven hundred miles east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, in 1505. By 1681 it had been driven to extinction by humans and feral dogs, pigs, rats, and monkeys introduced by Europeans to Mauritius. And you, Dr. Ivory, have actually seen one?

DR. IVORY: Well, not exactly. Two of my colleagues have seen one or two each, and we have some very solid physical evidence. First, we have several seconds of video footage of a Dodo running through some vegetation in the harbor.

LAURA: Yes, I examined the video this week, but I clocked the footage as less than two seconds.

DR. IVORY: Well, certainly the bird didn’t stay in the open very long.

LAURA: Dr. Ivory, the bird wasn’t in the open for any of it. The video is blurry and out of focus, and the bird or whatever it is in the video is obscured by vegetation until it runs behind a grain elevator.

DR. IVORY: We admit the video is of poor quality, but we’ve done calculations. The measurements of the video subject are exactly what we probably would have seen had any intact Dodo specimens survived to be measured. And we know for a fact that the wing-beat rate measurements of the bird in the video match precisely the wing-beat rate for Dodoes. Zero.

LAURA: Dr. Ivory, let’s cut to the chase. How is it possible that such a huge bird could possibly have been living undetected in an area where so many people drive by every day and where people work and spend so much time?

DR. IVORY: Obviously, there’s no way Dodoes could have survived this long undetected if they couldn’t hide well. We found that their gray coloration is a close match for the color of dirty snow and gravel found in the harbor, providing them with camouflage year-round. And it turns out they apparently lack vocal cords. Their inability to make vocalizations enhances their ability to avoid detection.

LAURA: But you said you had sound recordings.

DR. IVORY: Precisely. We took thousands of hours of recordings in the Duluth Harbor area over the past year, and in not one was there a single sound that could be attributed to a bird that wasn’t known to live in the harbor. That proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Dodoes were both present and incapable of vocalizations.

LAURA: Dr. Ivory, Mauritius is over 10,000 miles from Duluth as the crow flies, and Dodoes could neither fly nor swim. How could they possibly have gotten here?

DR. IVORY: That’s our most interesting finding. First, we discovered that a British ship, the HMS Jerome Jackson, took off from Mauritius in late 1651. We assume that sailors had brought several Dodoes on board to butcher as they needed fresh meat during their voyage. But that ship never was heard from again. People always assumed that it sunk in a storm off Madagascar. But we hypothesized that a band of pirates actually brought the ship and its cargo to an uncharted island somewhere in the Indian Ocean or South Atlantic. Little by little, the birds adapted to living on ships and in ports, slipping on and off undetected, and finally found themselves on a ship bound for Duluth. And the rest, as they say, is history.

LAURA: Thank you, Dr. Ivory. We also talked to Penny Brinkley of the Duluth Chamber of Commercialism. Ms. Brinkley, the Chamber, is said to be thrilled about this discovery.

PENNY BRINKLEY: Yes, Laura. We anticipate birders coming from all over the world to see this exciting bird. Major birding festivals should be meeting here in the coming years. We’ve created a new logo: “Duluth—City of Dodoes,” which will be appearing on t-shirts and baseball caps. Meanwhile, several authors have already written books about the discovery. The Da Vinci Dodo, Waiting for Dodo, and Dodo Escher Bach. Morgan Freeman may be narrating a documentary. And who knows what Tim Burton will come up with?

LAURA: Some scientists are taking issue with this research. They’d hoped to have the rebuttal published in The Auk, the Journal of the American Ornithologists’ Union. But since the Auk is extinct, the editors didn’t think it was appropriate. I’m Laura Erickson, speaking for the Birds.