More than 1,000 species of birds suffered the same fate as the dodo when humans first colonised the tropical Pacific islands, research has shown.

Over-hunting by humans, exacerbated by forest clearance, was a major cause of prehistoric bird extinction

Through hunting and deforestation, the settlers caused irreversible damage to the “untouched paradise” they had found, experts said.

The catastrophic mass extinctions occurred between 700 and 3,500 years ago – long before dodos vanished from the island of Mauritius in the 17th century, also as a result of human activity.

Tim Blackburn, director of the Zoological Society of London’s Institute of Zoology, said: “We studied fossils from 41 tropical Pacific islands and using new techniques we were able to gauge how many extra species of bird disappeared without leaving any trace.

“If we take into account all the other islands in the tropical Pacific, as well as seabirds and songbirds, the total extinction toll is likely to have been around 1,300 bird species.”

Humans had colonised the islands of Samoa, Tonga and Fiji by around 3,500 years ago, but only reached Hawaii and New Zealand 900 to 700 years ago.

Between the arrival of these settlers and the first contact with Europeans, around two-thirds of the islands’ bird populations became extinct.

Hunting and forest clearance hit certain species much harder than others, said the researchers writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Among the losses were several species of moa-nalos, large flightless waterfowl from Hawaii. Another casualty was the Caledonian Sylviornis, a relative of the pheasant or grouse which was three times heavier than a swan.

“Over-hunting by humans, exacerbated by forest clearance, was a major cause of prehistoric bird extinctions, reflected in particularly high rates of loss among large-bodied flightless species on islands across the Pacific,” the scientists wrote.

New Zealand’s large size, rugged landscape and high rainfall set it apart from other Pacific islands and allowed birds to survive that would otherwise have been lost.

The extinctions did not stop with the arrival of the first Europeans, which saw 40 more species vanish.

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