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Full 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.
Contents
Prologue Aitche is for auk
Part 1 Life
Chapter 1. Funk Heaven
Chapter 2. Foul Deeds: Funk Hell
Chapter 3. The Auk and the Walrus
Chapter 4. Three Men in a Boat
Chapter 5. All things from eggs
Chapter 6. The Chick that Never Was
Part II: Afterlife
Chapter 7. Discovery: A Playboy, Pilot and Amateur Ornithologist
Chapter 8 Millionaire Collector
Chapter 9. Witch Hunters
Chapter 10. Afterlife Lessons
Chapter 11. Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
