LIghT ThE WAy ChAPTER 4 STEWARDShIP To the Edge of Extinction
It is often said that we only appreciate the importance of something when it’s gone. In the late 19th century, the passenger pigeon was a familiar sight to people all along the east coast of the USA. These birds were so numerous that their flocks would stretch for miles across the skies as they migrated each year to their breeding grounds in New England. However, excessive levels of hunting soon changed that. By 1914, a species that, only forty years previously had numbered more than five billion birds, had become extinct.
Asian elephants are on the World Wildlife Fund critically endangered list.
REMEMBER! Extinct means that a particular form of life has completely died out.
The passenger pigeon is only one of about 130 species of bird that have become extinct due to human action within the last six centuries.
But why should we worry if some creatures become extinct? Perhaps the following story will make the importance of preserving the different plant and animal species clear.
SP TLIGHT ON: THE EXTINCTION OF THE DODO
The destruction of the dodo of Mauritius remains one of the best known cases of animal extinctions.
A full-grown adult dodo was a large bird, weighing around 50 lbs. It stood about 3 feet tall on two stout yellow legs. It had a large black beak and greyish blue feathers that covered its body except for a white plume on its tail. Its wings were very small, making it flightless.
Mauritius is a large island in the Indian Ocean. It is far from any other land mass.
The dodo lived undisturbed on Mauritius for so long that
it lost both its need and its ability to fly. There were no mammals on the island. So, the dodo could safely live and nest on the ground. It had an abundant food source in all the ripe fruit that fell from trees that covered the island.
