GLEN VAUDREY: Whole Wide World #26

Greenland – Great Auk

Greenland is as big an island as they go being the biggest one that isn’t a continent. It’s an autonomous country within the kingdom of Denmark. Despite the impressive size of the island around 80% of its surface area is covered by a great ice sheet which means that settlement has taken place around the fringes of the island, and it is from one of these little settlements that the report of today’s cryptid comes.

Officially the Great Auk became extinct in 1844 when the last known birds met a grisly end on a small island off the coast of Iceland. However, extinct or not, that didn’t stop further sightings being reported, in 1888 four birds were seen standing on a rock in a little group of islands to the south of Disko Island called Kronprinsens Ejlande. But there has been one further sighting of more recent date which took place in the 1920s and which resulted in the bird not only being caught but being served up for tea.

Next stop Iceland.

GLEN VAUDREY: Another visit to The Savage World

So far (see yesterday) The Savage World had failed to notice that the extinction of one bird, the great auk, had already happened. However, regarding today’s bird, the passenger pigeon, the author seems to have been more on the ball.

‘The passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) is our best know American bird of the pigeon genera, though within the last few years it has so nearly disappeared that it is seldom seen except in the Indian Territory, where one or two large roosts are still visited. When a boy I have seen the pigeons flying overhead in such enormous flocks that the sky would be fairly shut out from view by their bodies for hours at a time. These migrations were very frequent, caused by the very great devastations the birds wrought, requiring almost constant change of place to produce food. It is perfectly within the bounds of reason to say, as did Wilson, that as many as a billion wild pigeons have been seen to pass over a single course in three days, and that the consumption of food by these birds in the same time was equal to seventeen million bushels. Incredible as their numbers were twenty-five years ago, only a bare remnant now remains and within a like period they will probably become extinct. So quickly do they leave their feeding places and so great is their speed of flight that specimens have been shot in the northern New York with crops yet filled with rice taken from the savannas of the far South. As digestion is accomplished in these birds in less than twelve hours, the distance of more than one thousand miles must have been traversed in less than that brief time’

While sightings of wild passenger pigeons crept all the way up to 1930 it is unlikely that any actually managed to hang on that long. Certainly the last captive example, Martha, died on 1 September 1914 at Cincinnati Zoo. As an example of both the numbers of birds involved and the scale of the slaughter it is recorded that in 1878 at a site in Petoskey, Michigan, there was a daily slaughter of 50,000 birds that carried on for nearly five months, perhaps then it is hardly surprising that the author could see that the end was nigh for the passenger pigeon.

GLEN VAUDREY: Great auks in the Savage World

I am lucky enough to own a first edition 1889 copy of The Savage World: a complete natural history of the world’s creatures. This is a mighty tome. For those who have never seen a copy, I can give you very good clue to what it resembles, and that is a breeze block; it is that big and heavy. Of course it does have better pictures than a lump of building material.

Aside from its potential use as a hefty doorstop, it does give a glimpse into the natural world of the late Victorians. As you may imagine, some animals known today do not feature in it; the Okapi was still to be found, as was the mountain gorilla. But it isn’t what’s missing that I find interesting; rather it is the animals that were still current at the time the book was written, and what if anything we can learn from them.

The first animal to look at is one of my favourites, the great auk; the following is what The Savage World has to say about that bird.

‘The spectacled auk or great auk (Alca impennis) belongs to northern-most Europe. When it is the water it is almost impossible to pursue it quickly enough to get within shooting range, but like the albatross it can be caught with a hook. It is rapidly becoming extinct and, in spite of the extreme high price which either the bird or its eggs command, the museums of the world contain but 34 birds and but 42 eggs. Collections of the bird’s eggs are quite important to naturalists, but the objects sought by THE LIVING WORLD forbid any discussion of so large a theme. The spectacled auk is black above and white below; around and below the eyes are white markings (which give the auk its popular name) and the small wings or flippers are bordered with white on the upper arm’

Bizarrely, despite the fact that this book is from 1889, it appears that the author was unaware that the last known great auk went to meet its maker in 1844, and by the time of the book’s publication the type had long been extinct. That said, there were a few supposed sightings off Lofoten isles in the 1930s but these are widely suspected to be sightings of king penguins that had been released in the area at around the same time.

OLL LEWIS: An Auk-ward Silence

Now, over to Oll Lewis, the CFZ ecologist (who also happens to be the bloke living in my spare room) who - every day - tells us about `Yesterday's News Today` with a bevy of bad puns....


Whenever a species becomes extinct it is a truly lamentable occurrence. I often wonder, late at night when I’m having problems getting to sleep, if the last survivors of a species are aware of their plight; did the last woolly mammoth endlessly trudge the icy tundra looking for others, cheerfully thinking that he might find a mate the next day or did he ever truly accept there would be no more of his kind? Perhaps I’m anthropomorphosising a bit much but if a last survivor of a species was aware of his plight it would be truly tragic.

The tragedy is only compounded when it is human activity that caused the extinction. Humans have caused many extinctions; two that spring readily to mind are that of the passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) and the great auk (Pinguinus impennis). Both species were huge in numbers until man started to hunt them intensively, but the story of the final demise of the great auk is a particularly sad one.

Ever since humans first encountered the great auk they hunted it, even as far back as 100,000 years ago; bones from great auk have been found in the remains of Neanderthal fires and the bird has appeared in a number of cave paintings. This predation was not a problem until the sixteenth century because the numbers taken by humans were easily eclipsed by reproduction. However, things were soon to change. Ships began to stop off at great auk breeding sites while en route to and from the Americas. At first these stops off would just be to replenish food stocks, but soon some ships would go as far as to herding hundreds of birds on board ship for needless mass slaughter.

The bird's feathers were in demand as well as its meat and many birds were probably killed for no greater reason than stuffing a rich mans pillow with its down or so its feathers could make a fetching decoration in a woman’s hat. The trade in the feathers and down of the great auk in Britain and Europe was so great it led to the near eradication of nesting sites on the east side of the Atlantic Ocean. Eventually the killing of great auks for their feathers was banned by Britain in 1794, but this was long after the species had started a terminal decline. A further blow came to the species on the west of the Atlantic when the eider duck was forced into near extinction and down collectors from North America switched their attention to the great auk in the late eighteenth century. The fact that great auk eggs were highly sought after by egg collectors did little to help the species’ long term survival prospects too, especially when the egg collectors found out that the great auks laid their eggs over a number of days so a collector could take considerably more eggs if he was prepared to wait around.

The last great auk ever found in Britain came ashore on Stac An Armin, St Kilda, Scotland and was tried as a witch by locals. It ended its life in July 1840 tied up for three days and beaten to a bloody pulp by locals armed with sticks.

Around this time, a single colony of great auks survived on the small volcanic island of Geirfuglasker, which was near Iceland and was inaccessible to humans. Disaster struck in 1830 when an undersea volcanic eruption caused Geirfuglasker to sink beneath the waves. Most of the surviving birds made it to the nearby island of Eldey, which unfortunately was accessible to humans. When news spread of the great awks' presence on Eldey several museums commissioned collecting parties to bring back as many dead great auks as possible to add to their taxidermy collections; the birds would fetch a high price due to their rarity. On 3rd July 1844, less than ten years after the colony had been discovered, the final breeding pair was located. The last two birds were strangled just before the egg they had been incubating was smashed.

One last solitary great auk was seen after the murder of the last breeding pair and their unborn chick. The last great auk was seen on the Grand Banks of Newfoundand in 1852. I wonder if he ever questioned where all the others like him were or if he knew he was alone.

GLEN VAUDREY: Looking for the great Auk

The last confirmed sighting of a happy and lively looking Great Auk took place on the Icelandic island of Eldey on 3 June 1844 and how do we know it is the last confirmed sighting, we have the bodies to prove it. Unfortunately the witnesses to this last sighting happened to be a couple of hunters who had just dispatched the birds. It is unlikely that they even knew the importance of that days hunt.

Like many reckless acts of violence it would come to be regretted in the years to come and such was this case. Iceland may have played host to the last known populations of this remarkable bird but it was left without a single example of this most well adapted of sea birds.

It would be 1971 before Iceland would acquire its very own Great Auk buying one at a London auction for the princely sum of £9,000 which was at the time a world record price for a stuffed bird. Unlike the last bird leaving the island in a crate the new example was flown back to Iceland first class and received a hero’s welcome upon arrival in Reykjavik, with flags flying and children given the afternoon of to mark the occasion.

Fast forward twenty one years to a rain soaked, cold and dark Thursday afternoon early in November and you would find me wandering around the back streets of Reykjavik looking for the mortal remains of this seventies avian superstar.

Aided by nothing more than a small soggy map to guide me to the Museum of Natural History I was rather surprised to find that the museum was behind a solid looking door in a building that for all the world looked like a disused warehouse. After climbing a concrete flight of stairs I arrived at the entrance paid my handful of króna to a rather startled little old man at the door he appeared a little surprised at the prospect of a visitor. I was soon hunting through the display cases full of rock types and lava samples all very interesting I am sure but they didn’t really float my boat.

The search was not in vane because there in a glass cabinet in a far corner of the room proudly stood the Great Auk, looking if truth be said rather moth eaten. I couldn’t help but feel that while it arrival might have been heralded, it was now in danger of being forgotten. And as on my way back to the hotel I passed the whaling boats tied up in the harbour I suspected that the lesson of the birds extinction may also have been forgotten.