The dodo bird disappeared so quickly off the face of Earth 300 years ago that it has become the poster bird for extinction: Perhaps you've heard the popular expression "as dead as a dodo." Until the modern era, the dodo had led a charmed life: There were no predatory mammals, reptiles, or even large insects on its island habitat and thus no need to evolve any natural defenses. In fact, dodo birds were so innately trusting that they would actually waddle up to armed Dutch settlers—unaware that these strange creatures intended to kill and eat them—and they made irresistible lunches for these settlers' imported cats, dogs, and monkeys.
Ironically, considering how indiscriminately they were clubbed to death by Dutch settlers, dodo birds weren't all that tasty. Dining options being fairly limited in the 17th century, though, the sailors who landed on Mauritius did the best with what they had, eating as much of the clubbed dodo carcasses as they could stomach and then preserving the leftovers with salt. There's no particular reason the meat of the dodo would have been unsavory to human beings; after all, this bird subsisted on the tasty fruits, nuts, and roots native to Mauritius and possibly shellfish.
As sudden and swift as the dodo's demise was, though, this unfortunate bird holds important lessons for managing endangered animals that are just barely avoiding extinction today and about the fragility of island ecosystems with their endemic species that have adapted to their unique environment.