The Great Auk

The Great Auk
Author: Errol Fuller
Publisher: Bunker Hill Publishing, Inc.
Total Pages: 56
Release: 2003
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9781593730031

A seabird whose extinction was entirely the work of humankind, the last two recorded great auk's were killed on June 3, 1844. This book pays homage to this incredible species.

The Tragic Tale of the Great Auk

The Tragic Tale of the Great Auk
Author: Jan Thornhill
Publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd
Total Pages: 46
Release: 2016-10-01
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1554989922

For hundreds of thousands of years, Great Auks thrived. And then they were gone ... For hundreds of thousands of years Great Auks thrived in the icy seas of the North Atlantic, bobbing on the waves, diving for fish and struggling up onto rocky shores to mate and hatch their fluffy chicks. But by 1844, not a single one of these magnificent birds was alive. In this stunningly illustrated non-fiction picture book, award-winning author and illustrator Jan Thornhill tells the tragic story of these birds that “weighed as much as a sack of potatoes and stood as tall as a preteen’s waist.” Their demise came about in part because of their anatomy. They could swim swiftly underwater, but their small wings meant they couldn’t fly and their feet were so far back on their bodies, they couldn’t walk very well. Still the birds managed to escape their predators much of the time ... until humans became seafarers. Great Auks were pursued first by Vikings, then by Inuit, Beothuk and finally European hunters. Their numbers rapidly dwindled. They became collectors’ items — their skins were stuffed for museums, to be displayed along with their beautiful eggs. (There are some amazing stories about these stuffed auks — one was stolen from a German museum during WWII by Russian soldiers; another was flown to Iceland and given a red-carpet welcome at the airport.) Although undeniably tragic, the final demise of the Great Auk led to the birth of the conservation movement. Laws were eventually passed to prevent the killing of birds during the nesting season, and similar laws were later extended to other wildlife species. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.3 Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information in the text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.4 Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words or phrases in a text relevant to a grade 4 topic or subject area.

Who Killed the Great Auk?

Who Killed the Great Auk?
Author: Jeremy Gaskell
Publisher:
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2000
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9780198564782

"Who Killed the Great Auk? takes us on a tour of some of the wildest and most remote communities on earth. We travel with Audubon to Labrador, sail to the remote Scottish island of St. Kilda, experience the hardship of life in the Newfoundland colonies, and follow the peregrinations of intrepid naturalists as they put to sea in search of the very last of the Great Auks."--Jacket.

An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It

An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It
Author: Jessie Greengrass
Publisher: JM Originals
Total Pages: 87
Release: 2015-07-30
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1473610869

WINNER OF THE EDGE HILL SHORT STORY PRIZE 2016 SHORTLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES/PFD YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD 2016 'Greengrass is undoubtedly that rare thing, a genuinely new and assured voice in prose. Her work is precise, properly moving, quirky and heartfelt' A. L. Kennedy The twelve stories in this startling collection range over centuries and across the world. There are stories about those who are lonely, or estranged, or out of time. There are hauntings, both literal and metaphorical; and acts of cruelty and neglect but also of penance. Some stories concern themselves with the present, and the mundane circumstances in which people find themselves: a woman who feels stuck in her life imagines herself in different jobs - as a lighthouse keeper in Wales, or as a guard against polar bears in a research station in the Arctic. Some stories concern themselves with the past: a sixteenth-century alchemist and doctor, whose arrogance blinds him to people's dissatisfaction with their lives until he experiences it himself. Finally, in the title story, a sailor gives his account - violent, occasionally funny and certainly tragic - of the decline of the Great Auk.

The Lost Bird Project

The Lost Bird Project
Author: Todd McGrain
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9781611685664

A sculptor creates memorials to five extinct North American bird species

The Passenger Pigeon

The Passenger Pigeon
Author: Errol Fuller
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2014-09-15
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 140085220X

A haunting, beautifully illustrated memorial to this iconic extinct bird At the start of the nineteenth century, Passenger Pigeons were perhaps the most abundant birds on the planet, numbering literally in the billions. The flocks were so large and so dense that they blackened the skies, even blotting out the sun for days at a stretch. Yet by the end of the century, the most common bird in North America had vanished from the wild. In 1914, the last known representative of her species, Martha, died in a cage at the Cincinnati Zoo. This stunningly illustrated book tells the astonishing story of North America's Passenger Pigeon, a bird species that—like the Tyrannosaur, the Mammoth, and the Dodo—has become one of the great icons of extinction. Errol Fuller describes how these fast, agile, and handsomely plumaged birds were immortalized by the ornithologist and painter John James Audubon, and captured the imagination of writers such as James Fenimore Cooper, Henry David Thoreau, and Mark Twain. He shows how widespread deforestation, the demand for cheap and plentiful pigeon meat, and the indiscriminate killing of Passenger Pigeons for sport led to their catastrophic decline. Fuller provides an evocative memorial to a bird species that was once so important to the ecology of North America, and reminds us of just how fragile the natural world can be. Published in the centennial year of Martha’s death, The Passenger Pigeon features rare archival images as well as haunting photos of live birds.

Lost Animals

Lost Animals
Author: Errol Fuller
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2013-11-21
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1408160013

Caught on camera prior to their demise, this book reveals the surprisingly rich photographic record of now-extinct animals. A photograph of an animal long-gone evokes a feeling of loss more than a painting ever can. Often tinted sepia or black-and-white, these images were mainly taken in zoos or wildlife parks, and in a handful of cases featured the last known individual of the species. There are some familiar examples, such as Martha, the last Passenger Pigeon, or the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, recently fledged and perching happily on the hat of one of the biologists that had just ringed it. But for every Martha there are a number of less familiar extinct birds and mammals that were caught on camera. The photographic record of extinction is the focus of this remarkable book, written by the world's leading authority on vanished animals, Errol Fuller. Lost Animals features photographs dating from around 1870 to as recently as 2004, the year that saw the demise of the Hawaiian Po'ouli. From a mother Thylacine and her pups to now-extinct birds such as the Heath Hen and Carolina Parakeet, Fuller tells the tale of each animal, why it became extinct, and discusses the circumstances surrounding the photography itself, in a book rich with unique images. The photographs themselves are poignant and compelling. They provide a tangible link to animals that have now vanished forever, in a book that brings the past to life while delivering a warning for the future.

Hope Is the Thing With Feathers

Hope Is the Thing With Feathers
Author: Christopher Cokinos
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2009-05-14
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1101057106

A prizewinning poet and nature writer weaves together natural history, biology, sociology, and personal narrative to tell the story of the lives, habitats, and deaths of six extinct bird species.

The Sixth Extinction

The Sixth Extinction
Author: Elizabeth Kolbert
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2014-02-11
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0805099794

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR A major book about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us. In The Sixth Extinction, two-time winner of the National Magazine Award and New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert draws on the work of scores of researchers in half a dozen disciplines, accompanying many of them into the field: geologists who study deep ocean cores, botanists who follow the tree line as it climbs up the Andes, marine biologists who dive off the Great Barrier Reef. She introduces us to a dozen species, some already gone, others facing extinction, including the Panamian golden frog, staghorn coral, the great auk, and the Sumatran rhino. Through these stories, Kolbert provides a moving account of the disappearances occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in revolutionary Paris up through the present day. The sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy; as Kolbert observes, it compels us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.