The third stage of the extinction events I’ve been cataloguing here began with the settlement of New Zealand by Europeans, mainly Brits, after the...

No moa, no moa In old Ao-tea-roa Can’t get ’em They’ve et ’em They’re gone and there ain’t no moa’ New Zealand folk song....

“The only mammal present is the harmless Polynesian rat, Rattus exulans” Gordon Williams, 1962 “the Pacific rat was the only factor in the extinction...

“I will not portray islands as outstanding natural laboratories because not many of them are natural any more.” David Steadman, Extinction and Biogeography of...

“Islands are where species go to die.” David Quammen, Song of the Dodo 12,000 birds. No doubt to many readers it has a familiar...