Existing comment:
The Eternal Dodo
"She drew her head down against her body, fluffed her feathers for warmth, squinted in patient misery. She waited. She didn't know it, nor did anyone else, but she was the only dodo on Earth. When the storm passed, she never opened her eyes. This is extinction."
-- David Quammen, 1996
Like most accounts of the dodo, the scene described above is an invention. We have no idea how or when the last dodo perished. In fact, we know very little about the bird itself. It was first discovered on the island of Mauritius around 1600 and was extinct eighty years later. Having no natural predators, the dodo was a "disastrously trusting bird," easily hunted and unfairly maligned as a dim-witted creature. Unfortunately, these early, unscientific assessments of the species linger today.
Despite the scarcity of information about the dodo, or perhaps because of it, the bird has become a veritable icon of extinction. Countless artists, authors, and entrepreneurs have gravitated to the story of this ill-fated bird. Artist David Beck has been depicting the dodo in drawings, paintings, and sculptures for nearly forty years. Beck's diminutive sculptures evoke the surprise and discovery of childhood, but these playful curiosities belie a serious message about vulnerability, loss, and longing. |