ABSTRACT
In the late eighteenth century, primal encounters between animals who had never experienced major predation and the most predatory of all species-humanswere not infrequent. In March of 1788, the Supply of Australia’s first fleet made landfall at what their commandant named Lord Howe Island, a volcanic remnant which had over time become the home of numerous marine and terrestrial species of plants and animals, particularly birds. With arrivals by wind and sea from places as far distant as South Africa and New Caledonia, and survivals of the ancient continent of Gondwana (no longer surviving on the Australian mainland), Lord Howe Island had seen the evolution of more than 200 endemic species and sub-species, the most prominent of which in the terrestrial environment was the flightless woodhen (Tricholimnas sylvestris). lord Howe’s unique environment had achieved its own ecological stability, and when the noisy crew of the Supply came ashore-delighted not only to escape the confines of the ship but to hunt fresh meat after the restricted rations of the journey-woodhens came out in numbers to inspect the newcomers. Unacquainted with humans, they were tame and thus easily clubbed to death; but even this exertion on the part of the sailors proved unnecessary. By catching a few woodhens in their hands and breaking both their legs, the men discovered that the birds omitted a doleful cry which immediately drew others to them, thus facilitating their capture.1 Such scenes, with different species, were played out wherever humans went, resulting not only in the slaughter of billions of animals, but in the extinction of thousands of species in an appallingly short space of time.
