Flightless owls, other species became extinct due to human colonisation, claims new study

Flightless birds like flightless owls became extinct as human colonization cornered them. According to conversation.com, there are nearly 60 species of flightless birds and almost 12 species have become extinct. The flightless owls became extinct as humans started to hunt them and non-native predators like the rats hunted these birds.

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According to the AAAS journal, the Inaccessible Island rail is an excellent example of how flightless birds did not become extinct like the extinct birds as these rails had a secure homeland inaccessible to humans and they can thrive there with safety. There are many other flightless birds among the other animals under threat.

How the birds became extinct

The article by conversation.com searched through the data of anthropology and tried to find the cause of the extinction of the flightless woodpeckers and other birds. There were nearly 581 birds that became extinct because of human invasion. Among these birds, 166 birds were flightless or were weak flyers. These birds are 29% of the total extinct population. The dodo birds, which were iconic flightless pigeons, became extinct as human colonists hunted them for entertainment and food. On the other hand, the moa-nalos, a flightless goose from Hawaiian, the elephant birds from Madagascar were some of the birds which became extinct without any invasion from humans.

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Archaeologists have found nearly 226 species of flightless birds including the living and extinct birds. Hence it is clear that flightless birds had a general evolution. Some birds have been extinct as the environment changed.

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It is found that the evolutionary transition for flightless birds is nearly four times higher than the other living species. That means the evolution from flying to flightless was not so uncommon. For example, flightless owls, flightless woodpeckers, flightless hoopoes, flightless finches, and flightless ibis are now extinct.

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On the other hand, flightless birds like penguins, emus, ostriches are also among the animals under threat. Often, flightless birds thrived in a safe place that did not have any larger threats. So flight became a luxury in the absence of dangers. Hence, some birds became utterly flightless. This made them utterly vulnerable to new threats.

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But, when humans started to colonize new places, flightless birds were wiped out. Besides that, the colonization also changed the ecosystem of the native homeland, thus resulting in the extinction of the many flightless bird species.