Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 2
The Gift of Isolation
I N 1704, A S COTTISH BUCCANEER by the name of Alexander Selkirk was abandoned by his
captain on a remote, uninhabited island off the coast of Chile. Selkirk had become a nuisance
aboard the CinquePorts , telling his fellow mates that the ship was unseaworthy. None heeded
his warnings nor his invitation to join his party of one; all preferred instead to sail on with their
commander. It was a bad choice in the end: the Cinque Ports later dashed on the rocks and
many of her crew members drowned in the surf.
Soon after Selkirk headed inland to seek shelter, a large, reddish hummingbird flitted past
him. How strange to encounter a hummingbird on an island in the South Pacific Ocean nearly
700 kilometers off the coast of Chile. Yet the Juan Fernández firecrown (named for the cluster
of islands that included Selkirk's new home) was one of the few native vertebrates sharing this
remote outpost with Selkirk and some feral goats introduced by earlier sailors. Selkirk spent
the next four years as a castaway, alone, living off goat meat, wild fruit, and greens. He was
eventually rescued by one of his former shipmates and returned to England to some acclaim.
The tale of the hummingbird and the marooned sailor took place on an island called Más
a Tierra, which might seem irrelevant except that it now goes by the name of Robinson Cru-
soe Island. Literary historians have hypothesized that Daniel Defoe's novel, first published in
1719, was inspired by Selkirk's ordeal. Others have disputed this claim, pointing out that De-
foe set his hero down on a tropical shore resembling Tobago or Trinidad rather than the more
temperate Juan Fernández Islands. Regardless of the venue, TheAdventuresofRobinsonCru-
soe remains one of the most widely read pieces of fiction of all time.
The hummingbird has drawn less fanfare, but it has its own interesting side story. Unlike
Selkirk, the firecrown was a longtime resident, having arrived on the island slightly less than
a million years earlier. The firecrown is endemic to Robinson Crusoe Island, meaning that this
island is the only site on Earth where it can be found. The total firecrown population is estim-
ated to be 700 to 2,900 individuals, down from as many as 10,000 individuals earlier in the
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