The little dodo lives only on the Samoan islands of Upolu and Savai’i. Between the two populations, as many as 7,000 of the birds were thought to exist in the 1980s; since then, due to habitat destruction and hunting by humans, numbers have collapsed to a few hundred individuals. Conservationists currently are trying to learn more about the species in order to come up with an effective recovery plan before it’s too late. Captive breeding of the little dodo is one of the measures being considered.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the little dodo as Endangered, and is considering changing the bird’s status to Critically Endangered.
If we are able to save the little dodo, perhaps our actions will at least partially atone for our species’ destruction of the large dodo all those centuries ago. More on the little dodo and the ongoing effort to save it is available at the SAMOAN BIRDS website.
