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The Great Auk was a bird of the genus Alca, which also includes the Little Auk, Common Murre, Razor Bill and Atlantic Puffin. All of these species live or lived in the North Atlantic. The Great Auk was the largest of these birds and could grow up to 70 cm in height. Some of the other Alca birds had bright or whitish abdomens and dark-black backs, with a characteristic white spot on each side of the head, between the eyes and eye socket. They were flightless birds, with wings that were as small as the South Atlantic penguin. It was fast in the water when hunting fish but very clumsy on land.

The Great Auk lived in large colonies along the coast on both sides of the North Atlantic, so far south that remains of the bird are found in Stone Age and Viking Age kitchen middens.

The bird’s fate was sealed because it was easy to hunt and butcher. Already in the 15th century, the Great Auk was more or less extinct in Northern Europe but large colonies remained in Greenland, Iceland, Newfoundland, Baffin Island and Labrador. When cod fishing began in Newfoundland and whale hunting began in the North Atlantic, the Great Auk’s fate was sealed. The fishing and hunting boats only had supplies for the trip out, so the Great Auk was taken alive or butchered onboard the boats for the return journey.

The most famous colony was on the Penguin Islands (called Funk Island today), which lies north east of Newfoundland. The last Great Auks were killed in 1801-1802. At that point people were aware of how rare the bird had become and European museums were willing to pay a fortune to get hold of the skin of the Great Auk before it became extinct. The last Great Auks were taken in 1844 on the small island Eldey south of Reykjanes, Iceland but there were unconfirmed observations of the Great Auk in Vardø in Norway in 1848 and several times in Greenland in the 1850s. But the bird is now extinct.

The Great Auk was a summer visitor to the Faroe Islands but there was never any evidence that it bred there. The last bird was taken at Stóra Dímun on 1 July 1808.

There exist a few stuffed examples of the Great Auk, for example Iceland purchased a pair that can be seen today in the Natural History Museum of Iceland. The Zoological Museum in Copenhagen has used the Great Auk as a logo for many years. Ole Worm’s Museum Wormianum in Copenhagen was sent a living Great Auk. It was drawn showing a ring around its neck, which meant that it had been tethered.

The Great Auk is an example of a bird that was hunted to extinction purely because of a lack of knowledge about its population distribution. The fishermen of the day cannot be reproached for this, since they did not have the benefit of modern communication technology. But the museums could have perhaps tried to save the Great Auk rather than have helped to deliver the final blow.

Source: Wopa

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