Great Auk: The Extinction of the Original Penguin

Garefowls, Penguins of the North, Riesenalks, Apponaths, Great Auks—all of these were names for a sea bird whose extinction was entirely the work of humankind. The birds' existence ended on the morning of the third day of June 1844, when the last two recorded great auks were killed by three fishermen on the island of Eldey, a few miles south of Iceland in the North Atlantic Ocean.

For thousands of years, until not so long before that fateful day, great auks swam the Atlantic in their millions and flocked to their breeding grounds from Newfoundland in the west, to Iceland and the Outer Hebrides in the east. Whole colonies at a time were hunted to death for their meat, feathers, and fat by sailors and fishermen from Europe and the Americas.

The Great Auk: The Extinction of the Original Penguin tells this tale of destruction and of what we, as a species, do to the world around us.