1. Mauritius is the one and only place in the world formerly inhabited by the Dodo. What a sad, sad fate for this poor little creature. An excerpt from my Lonely Planet Mauritius: "Illustrations from the logbooks of the first ships to reach Mauritius show hundreds of plump, flightless birds running down to the beach to investigate the newcomers. Lacking natural predators, these giant relatives of the pigeon were easy prey for hungry sailors, who named the bird dodo, meaning "stupid." It took just 30 years for passing sailors and their pets to drive the dodo to extinction."
2. Mauritius was recently #3 on the list of most endangered species in the world.
3. One of the many export businesses in Mauritius is rearing monkeys for scientific testing. I can't get much more info on this issue as everyone likes to be the one to let you know this fact and then follow it with the statement, "but we don't like to talk about it."
4. There is a steady business of stealing golden and labrador retrievers amongst some of the thieving types here. Almost everyone has a pet dog for security and retrievers are highly coveted. They are often stolen and sold onto other people and the original owners have to go via backdoor bribery to find them again.
5. I am of the opinion that most dog owners do not take proper care of their animals. I'm basing this on the large percentage of dogs that lunge at me and bare their teeth when I walk past their gates (80%), the number of times I've actually seen someone walk a dog (3x in 2 months) and the fact that my old neighbour's dog bit me in the butt on my 3rd day here when I calmly walked past their open fence.
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