Matches in DBpedia 2014 for { ?s ?p Attenborough uses two case studies to illustrate how island species have suffered due to human interference. Ancestral dodos arrived on Mauritius on storm winds, and gave up flying as they had no need to evade predators. With a varied diet and an abundant food supply, they grew as large as turkeys. What's more, the dodos were guileless and inquisitive, presenting an easy meal for hungry sailors. The introduction of rats, cats, pigs and monkeys compounded the dodo's problems, and by 1690 it was extinct. Isolation on remote North Atlantic islands caused the great auk to become flightless, but once discovered by man, they were slaughtered in their thousands each summer for their flesh and rich oil, becoming extinct by the 1850s. The huge penguin colonies around Antarctica are a more recent discovery. Here, isolation from land predators and a diet of fish has made them better adapted for swimming than flying. Now that humans are venturing to Antarctica in ever-increasing numbers, Attenborough fears for the penguins' future and hopes "this time we might take a lesson from history.". }
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- David_Attenborough's_Life_Stories shortsummary "Attenborough uses two case studies to illustrate how island species have suffered due to human interference. Ancestral dodos arrived on Mauritius on storm winds, and gave up flying as they had no need to evade predators. With a varied diet and an abundant food supply, they grew as large as turkeys. What's more, the dodos were guileless and inquisitive, presenting an easy meal for hungry sailors. The introduction of rats, cats, pigs and monkeys compounded the dodo's problems, and by 1690 it was extinct. Isolation on remote North Atlantic islands caused the great auk to become flightless, but once discovered by man, they were slaughtered in their thousands each summer for their flesh and rich oil, becoming extinct by the 1850s. The huge penguin colonies around Antarctica are a more recent discovery. Here, isolation from land predators and a diet of fish has made them better adapted for swimming than flying. Now that humans are venturing to Antarctica in ever-increasing numbers, Attenborough fears for the penguins' future and hopes "this time we might take a lesson from history."".