The Gone
Last December (2019) a group of researchers from Charles Darwin University, Charles Sturt University and the A.N.U verified that the number of endemic Australian species from 1788 to the present to be confirmed as extinct to be 100. However they noted that many extinctions have not been officially registered and many more species disappeared before their existence was recorded. The researchers speculate that actual tolls would be about 10 times greater than the 100 derived from official lists.3
The Gone explores seven of the 24 birds officially listed as extinct, from one of the smallest…. the Robust white–eye (Zosterops strenuous) to the King Island dwarf emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae minor). The Robust white-eye, along with at least six other avian extinctions was believed to be the result of the introduction of rats following the grounding of the SS Makambo in June 1919. The King Island dwarf emu was hunted to extinction with the last remaining two dying in captivity in Paris in 1822. The Kangaroo Island emu (Dromaius novvaehollandiae baudinianus) and the White gallinule (Porphyrio albus) were also hunted to extinction with the emu extinct by 1827 and the gallinule by 1834.
When creating the eggs and nests for this series of work the desire was to replicate (as near as possible), the type of nest and colour, size and shape of both egg and clutch for each species of bird represented. This I have done where possible, however relevant information was much sparser for some species and in those instances creativity has ruled.
