NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:38 pm Page 1 NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:38 pm Page 2 NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:38 pm Page 3 'Bones to Bronze' Extinct Species of the Mascarene Islands Sculptures by Nick Bibby Gallery Pangolin 2004 NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:38 pm Page 4 Introduction Shivers must surely go up the spine of Easily the most celebrated is the dodo, anyone who visits this exhibition, for the flightless and comically misshapen, eleven bronze sculptures all represent which disappeared in the 1660s, and creatures that have vanished from the one of the most recent casualties is the face of Earth. There is something lesser fruit bat, which hung on until the unnerving about the fact that they are middle of the 19th century. gone forever, driven out of existence by the carelessness and greed of The idea of making reconstructions mankind. The reconstructions take came from Dr Carl Jones, the biologist up very little space, yet they have who for the past 25 years has worked positively global significance, since as director of the Mauritian Wildlife they represent the latest initiative in Foundation, running the island’s unique an ambitious and imaginative fauna conservation programme. campaign to slow down the tide that Together with Rungwe Kingdon and is sweeping thousands of species Claude Koenig, directors of the towards extinction. Pangolin Editions sculpture foundry at Chalford, near Stroud, he conceived These birds and reptiles once lived on the notion of recreating lost species, the Mascarene Islands – Mauritius, and deploying the bronze sculptures Réunion and Rodrigues – way out in on the Ile aux Aigrettes, a 35-hectare the Indian Ocean to the east of Africa. islet off the south-eastern shore of NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:38 pm Page 5 Mauritius, which is now a nature reserve early reports of the various species, and has become the Foundation’s and hunting down the scant remains. showpiece. The pooling of their scholarly research enabled the sculptor Nick Bibby to The little island has been cleared of model the creatures in clay, from exotic vegetation, and the indigenous which the bronzes have been flora, such as ebony trees, are being cast. re-established. Alien creatures like rats, rabbits and wolf-snakes, thoughtlessly The blue pigeon was relatively simple imported by early sailors, have also to visualise, for three stuffed specimens been removed, and some of the of the bird survive, and the sculptor original inhabitants have been could not only see and measure them, restored, among them the pink pigeon but could count every feather – which and the Mauritius kestrel - both he did. As for the dodo – no body retrieved from the brink of extinction by exists, and the only physical relics the careful breeding programmes. Yet in all team had to work on were a there are fourteen species which can mummified head (once in the never be brought back to life and Ashmolean Museum, and now in the eleven of the bronzes are already sited Science Museum in Oxford), and some on the islet as part of a trail which bones. There is also the cast of a foot visitors can walk. (formerly in the British Museum, but now missing), and numerous drawings done What cannot be immediately by early visitors to the islands. apparent, either on Mauritius or here, is the astonishing amount of research From these scraps, and from their own that has gone into the recreation of sketches of the remains, the each bird and animal. The Pangolin researchers painstakingly built up a team, supported by Nick Arnold of the three-dimensional picture of what they Natural History Museum, author Errol believe the dodo must have looked Fuller and the independent experts like. The cast yielded information about Anthony Cheke and Julian Pender- the scales on its feet, and the shrunken Hume, went to extraordinary lengths in head revealed much about the gape search of authenticity, researching of its beak, the shape of its nostrils and NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:38 pm Page 6 the skin over its eyes. “The dodo is so the world. He has the lower jaw of one, much in everybody’s consciousness which he describes as “like a JCB that we absolutely had to get it right,” shovel.” With awe he holds up a seed says Rungwe Kingdon. “We’ve tried to from a tambalacoque tree – once the make all the replicas as exactly like the bird’s staple food. “I put one of these originals as possible, so that they have in a vice,” he said, “and it took five full some scientific credibility.” turns of the handle before it would crack. The strength in the parrot’s Still more shadowy was the giant beak must have been phenomenal.” gecko, of which only a skeleton was available. Yet from study of a smaller And yet, more than any strange gecko, a close relative which survives individual characteristics, it is the idea on Round Island (another islet of the of extinction, and the finality of it, that Mascarenes), Nick Bibby was able gives this exhibition its particular power. to reconstruct the larger reptile, The bronzes should arouse feelings of going into such minute detail that outrage at what humans have done he furnished it with 35,000 scales. to the planet, and strengthen determination to curb further Of all the lost birds, none impresses destruction of our environment. Rungwe Kingdon more than the broad- billed parrot – a giant, with the biggest, Duff Hart-Davis most powerful beak of any parrot in February 2004 NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:38 pm Page 7 Dodo Head Raphus cucullatus 35cm high NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:39 pm Page 8 Red Rail Aphanapterix bonasia 29cm high NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:39 pm Page 9 NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:39 pm Page 10 Rogdrigues Giant Gecko Phelsuma gigas 47cm high NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:39 pm Page 11 NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:39 pm Page 12 Mauritius Scops Owl Scops commersoni 40cm high NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:39 pm Page 13 NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:39 pm Page 14 Rodrigues Giant Tortoise Cylindraspis vosmaeri 122cm high NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:39 pm Page 15 NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:39 pm Page 16 Broad-billed Parrot Lophopsittacus mauritianus 42cm high NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:39 pm Page 17 NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:39 pm Page 18 Mauritius Giant Skink Didosaurus mauritianus 24cm high NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:39 pm Page 19 NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:39 pm Page 20 Mauritius Blue Pigeon Alectroenas nitidissima 42.5cm high NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:39 pm Page 21 NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:40 pm Page 22 Lesser Mascarene Fruit Bat Pteropus subniger 31cm high NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:40 pm Page 23 NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:40 pm Page 24 Dodo Raphus cucullatus 78cm high NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:40 pm Page 25 NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:40 pm Page 26 Stepping into the Past When the last Dodo became extinct an inevitable consequence of on the island of Mauritius sometime development. The Dodo was a late in the 17th century, it was the first caricature of a bird, a dull, ponderous, time that mankind realised that we flightless, stupid creature doomed to could cause the total demise of a extinction. The reality however is that species. Up until then it was assumed these views are hopelessly inaccurate. that species were inexhaustible and if Mauritius may still be a paradise to a population disappeared from one many but it is a mere shadow of its area then another would be found former self, a fractured paradise that elsewhere. With the death of the last has lost important parts. Not only has Dodo we realised that we could the Dodo gone but Mauritius and the cause the extinction of species and to other islands in the Mascarenes have avoid further losses we had to nurture lost herds of Giant Tortoises, giant wildlife. This was an important reptiles, flightless rails, large parrots, the realisation; the death of the last Dodo Solitaire, owls and a host of other saw the dawning of modern amazing creatures. conservation consciousness. Damaged though the ecology of Today Mauritius is seen as a paradise Mauritius might be, it is still possible to island, unspoilt beaches, verdant hills save some of the fractured pieces and and exotic birds, the loss of the Dodo to recover rare and endangered NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:40 pm Page 27 NEW Btobronze 6/7/06 3:40 pm Page 28 species. The Mauritius Kestrel, once have been helped by being fed and by reduced to four birds including only controlling their introduced predators. one breeding pair, has been restored Wild nests are carefully managed to by careful nurturing, captive breeding ensure that most of the eggs result in and reintroduction to a vibrant fledged young. The wild population of population of about eight hundred. this beautiful parrot has increased and this year the population has reached The Pink Pigeon, reduced to just ten two hundred birds. wild birds in 1990, has increased to a healthy, free-living population of three Slowly we have learned how to save the hundred and fifty. This has been rarest species and this has driven the achieved by releasing captive birds need to save the habitats in which they and caring for these and their wild live.