Lessons Of The Dodo
07.19.07 By Deanna Dahlsad
The newswires are filled with stories on the recent discovery of the remains of a Dodo bird found in a cave beneath bamboo and tea plantations in Mauritius, an island located in the Indian Ocean.
Dodo remains are rare finds. The last time Dodo skeletons were discovered was in 2005 when a mass grave was found in the southeastern part of the island known as Mare aux Songes — but the hot, wet, acidic environment meant poor DNA survival. Before that 2005 discovery the previous Dodo remains were found in 1920.
What really thrills scientists is that this skeleton, named Fred, was found intact and, having been isolated in a cave, well preserved enough that ‘he’ may be an excellent DNA source. Julian Hume, a palaeontologist at London’s Natural History Museum, said, “Then you can work out how it actually got to Mauritius, because it must have originally flown here before evolving into flightlessness and the big, fat bird that we know.”
While all of this is exciting, especially to a science geek like me, the reason the story’s been making the newswire rounds is because Fred was discovered just days after those wacky Kovels had mentioned the Dodo in one of their newsletters. Yet the Kovels knew nothing of Fred’s discovery because both he and the information of his existence were guarded until after he was safely removed.
In their newsletter, dated June 7, 2007, the Kovels told the story of a stuffed Dodo at the Ashmolean Museum in England:
It was in sad condition, and in 1755 the trustees decided to destroy it rather than spend the time and money to preserve it. The dilapidated stuffed bird was just tossed into a fire. Only a leg and the head survived the flames. Fortunately the parts were saved by another museum and we hear the relics have undergone DNA testing.
We can only guess what the value would be today of a whole stuffed dodo bird. So remember as you think about your collection: Never throw anything away just because it’s in bad condition. Sometimes it’s the only example you will ever find.
You know that I (as a hoarder, preserver of boxes, and mutant toy collector) agree with the Kovels. Don’t throw that out!
But this also reminded me of the expression, Dead as a Dodo, (and the similar or related Dumb as a Dodo, also discussed in Kovels June 14, 2007 newsletter), and of a conversation we had with the children just this past weekend.
We were discussing silent films and how many of these old films are gone forever because Hollywood actually reused the film. A combination of both conscious act (trying to save money by reusing celluloid) and ignorance (who knew that films which were no longer wanted by theaters would have any value?), film was recycled and thus we no longer have many of the old silent movies. The girls couldn’t fathom a universe in which movies and its related memorabilia weren’t valued and so they struggled with the concept, if not the actual losses in cinema history.
So Derek compared this to the original Disney animation cels which were dipped (just as Roger Rabbit et all feared!) so that the acetate could be reused for new animated films. This hit them hard, of course.
But all of this brings up the matter of technology. While Collin discusses, correctly, that vinyl has a short life and that one ought to preserve recordings digitally, what other advances render objects, collectibles, obsolete — as dead as Dodos?
Michael Sporn was similarly prompted by Dodos. Seeing the January 22, 2007, issue of The New Yorker, Sporn blogged:
This made me wonder if hand-drawn animation is going to go a similar way. Will they be able to find the bones a hundred years from now? Evidence seen in the past five years or so seems to give me little reason to doubt that it would be gone. MoCap will get better and the guise of animation will be front and center for the obvious future. There’s a good chance tomorrow will show us two of three nominees for Oscar’s Best Animated Feature will be Motion Capture. The animator as we knew it is virtually dead.
Still thinking of the issue, a week later Sporn revisited the issue with a deeper discussion of Motion Capture animation.
If technology threatens to render things obsolete, what will we do with all those things? They should be stored — and properly. But as recently as the 1960’s Warner Brothers destroyed nearly all the animation art they had in storage simply because they had no room for it. What will become of the things which exist now?
It is said that the Dodo died was because they were 1) fearless of people; 2) pushed out, made homeless, by humans cutting down their forest homes in the name of progress; and 3) flightless, so they laid their eggs on the ground where dogs, pigs and other critters ate them, dwindling their numbers.
As collectors we should learn from this.
We should be ‘afraid’ of what careless people will do with ‘obsolete’ objects. We should be sure to consider storage matters, make sure there will always be homes for items of value. And we should never leave our ‘babies’ where the ‘pigs’ can dwindle their numbers.
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Article Tags: birds, Dodo, Fred, Julian Hume, Kovels, Mare aux Songes, motion capture, Warner Brothers================
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July 19th, 2007 at 10:14 am
I’m still hurting from the SACK of great 45s that someone left outside the library door, after clearly dragging them across the blacktop… all scratching against each other, covered in dirt….. I shudder to think.
July 22nd, 2007 at 4:12 am
At least you rescued them
October 15th, 2007 at 5:50 am
[...] I didn’t fear that I’d be one of those people that you see on Antiques Roadshow who believe they have a prehistoric item which turns out to have been made in Mexico last year and then have to mask their disappointment &/or embarrassment — if only because I am constantly under-estimating the value of our stuff. But I didn’t want to look like a complete dodo either. I figured I should bring something I knew nothing about so that I could at least learn a little something… But what? [...]
October 29th, 2007 at 5:03 am
[...] Many of the old films, like Theda’s, were purposely destroyed — either for recycling of the precious celluloid, or thrown out as too old-fashioned as the talkies came in. Even more recently, as I’ve said before, films were tossed due to storage issues. But even those films not destroyed on purpose are becoming lost to us. [...]
March 18th, 2008 at 9:31 am
[...] I’m certain that things must be preserved least they go the way of the dodo, I am equally certain that I am not the person for the [...]