The Pink Pigeon (N. mayeri) is its closest living relative, and together they form a lineage apart from both the typical pigeons (Columba) and the typical turtle-doves (Streptopelia), slightly closer to the latter if anything.
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The idea was popularized among modern conservationists independently by Peter Scott and Gerald Durrell in the 1950s and 1960s, founders of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and Jersey Zoo, who demonstrated success with a wide variety of life forms in the 1970s ranging from birds (e.g. Pink Pigeon), mammals (e.g. Pygmy Hog), reptiles (e.g. Round Island Boa) and amphibians (e.g. Poison arrow frogs).
The conservation work in Mauritius began as a species orientated program concentrating on a few critically endangered species, including the Mauritius Kestrel and the Pink Pigeon.
Since 1994, the programme serves only as a safeguard, should some catastrophe befall the wild population, and other rare endemics are now being cared for at the station (such as the Pink Pigeon or the Mauritius Fody).