The Great Auk
Its Extraordinary Life, Hideous Death and Mysterious Afterlife
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
The life, death and afterlife of one of the true icons of extinction, the Great Auk
The great auk was a flightless, goose-sized bird superbly adapted for life at sea. Fat, flush with feathers and easy to capture, the birds were in trouble whenever sailors visited their once-remote breeding colonies. Places like Funk Island, off north-east Newfoundland, became scenes of unimaginable slaughter, with birds killed in their millions. By 1800 the auks of Funk Island were gone. A scramble by private collectors for specimens of the final few birds then began, a bloody, unthinking destruction of one of the world's most extraordinary species.
But their extinction in 1844 wasn't the end of the great auk story, as the bird went on to have a remarkable afterlife; skins, eggs and skeletons became the focus for dozens of collectors in a story of pathological craving and unscrupulous dealings that goes on to this day.
In a book rich with insight and packed with tales of birds and of people, Tim Birkhead reveals previously unimagined aspects of the bird's life before humanity, its death on the killing shores of the North Atlantic, and the unrelenting subsequent quest for its remains.
The great auk remains a symbol of human folly and the necessity of conservation. This book tells its story.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this fascinating study, Birkhead (Birds and Us), an evolutionary biology professor emeritus at the University of Sheffield, delves into the history of the great auk, a flightless seabird that went extinct in 1844. Extrapolating how the birds likely behaved based on the habits of such surviving auk species as razorbills and guillemots, Birkhead vividly recreates what their mating ritual might have looked like: "Her head feathers are raised in excitement, as are his, and holding her head downwards she opens her beak and releases a deep guttural growl." The arrival of Portuguese sailors off the Newfoundland coast in the early 16th century spelled doom for the species, Birkhead contends, describing how great auks were subsequently slaughtered for food, harvested for their feathers, and finally pursued to extinction by specimen-hungry scientists. Elsewhere, Birkhead explores what researchers have learned from analyzing the small number of preserved great auk remains. For instance, he discusses how analysis of DNA extracted from great auk bones revealed the species hadn't suffered a decline in genetic diversity before its demise, indicating its extinction was caused solely by humans and not environmental change. The Planet Earth–worthy descriptions bring the bird to life on the page, and the somber assessment of humanity's central role in its disappearance serves as a warning for humans to take seriously their responsibilities toward the natural world. It's a sobering wake-up call. Photos.
