That situation changed as the island came to be a regular stopping place for ships on long passages. Sailors who had existed for months on meager rations were eager to indulge in fresh meat, even if it was tough and bitter, as was the dodo's. After the island became a Dutch colony in 1644, extermination of the dodo was inevitable. The birds were almost tame; it was simple to walk up to them and crush their skulls with wooden clubs. Even if a dodo chose to flee, it could not outrun an able-bodied man.
While the adults died at human hands, their offspring fell prey to rats, dogs, cats, monkeys, and pigs, all introduced by the colonists and quick to adapt to the new environment. By 1680, Mauritius was entirely overrun by humans and their domestic animals; and the dodo, less than a century after it had been discovered, was gone. In fact, so swift and absolute had been its disappearance that, well into the nineteenth century, its existence was considered debatable, like the unicorn's. Only after a Mauritius resident presented scientists with several skeletons in 1865 was the dodo's existence confirmed.
