The Last of the Great Auks: Oral History and Ritual Killings at St Kilda

Reviewed by: The Tragic Tale of the Great Auk Elizabeth Bush Thornhill, Jan The Tragic Tale of the Great Auk; written and illus. by Jan Thornhill. Groundwood, 2016 44p ISBN 978-1-55498-865-5 $18.95 R* Gr. 3-6 The short of it is that the great auk, a flightless seabird, is extinct. The long of it, however, is that the story of this extinction is one of considerable complexity, with plot threads involving evolution, geology, human history, and several strokes of plain bad luck. Thornbill’s approach to this historical event is so advanced it’s simple: she tells the tale. No chapter headings, no sidebars, no highlighted vocabulary, no literary gimmicks. She just tells the tale. And what a tale it is. Evolution favored the great auk with a body wonderfully adapted to hunting fish in the cold, open sea. With short wings, and legs set unusually far back, it was a speedy, agile swimmer. The trade-off, though, was the inability to fly, and since birds cannot lay eggs in mid ocean, auks were forced ashore to mate, lay their eggs, and rear their fledglings in an environment in which their only mobility was an awkward waddle. Fortunately the great auk always managed to find nesting grounds on storm-wracked North Atlantic coasts, on uninhabitable islands, or in any number of craggy, cliff-protected spots that foiled predators or at least limited the predators’ threat to their overall numbers. Even early humans, who are known to have developed a taste for great auk, couldn’t make a dent in their thriving populations. Once human hunters took to the sea in ever more efficient boats, though, auk colonies began to diminish and even disappear, losing the race to find protected nesting grounds. Was this the beginning of the tragic end? Or was it when the last excellent rocky island refuge sank in a volcanic eruption? Or when legal efforts to protect the endangered birds against hunters proved too little, too late? Or when the great auk’s rarity made it a target for collectors, who hustled the very last survivors to their demise in the nineteenth century ? Thornhill engages readers with well-placed questions that anticipate their curiosity. “So why didn’t The Wobble [an New England nickname for the Great Auk] avoid land entirely?” “How, then, did it successfully raise its young for millennia?” “So is that all that’s left of the Great Auk? A few sad taxidermy displays and blown eggs?” She also exploits the natural momentum of the auks’ history: as the tale shifts chronological scale from evolutionary time to the historical time, the pacing accelerates and the details become more plentiful and sharply focused. Humans appear on the scene, and we learn about the tempting richness of auk egg omelettes and pancakes; the usefulness of a fatty auk carcass as a substitute for firewood; the execution of the last known auk in the British Isles for witchcraft; the skyrocketing value of rare auk eggs that drove a collector to crush one specimen in order to raise the value of another; Iceland’s 1971 purchase of a stuffed auk and its [End Page 111] celebratory arrival: “A bird that never flew in life flew into Iceland strapped into its very own seat on an airplane.” Digital artwork, which makes clever use of fine white lines detailing foamy ocean and ghostly images of the decimated species, could easily pass for mixed-media compositions. In keeping with the great auk’s very long backstory and relatively short but deadly connection with mankind, most spreads feature auks in the wild rather than alongside their human predators. A notable trio, though, delivers serious chills: a museum gallery featuring a pair of taxidermied auks; the stuffed auk on its way to Iceland, seen through an airplane window; and a view of the booted legs of the men who strangled the last remaining auks, which now dangle at the hunters’ sides. Yes, Nature dealt the great auks some weak hands, but they beat the odds for countless millennia, until humans finally drove them from the table. Lists of resources, references, extinct species, and great auk names in thirteen...

This paper presents all available archaeozoological, ethnohistorical, and historical evidence on the Great Auk, Pinguinus impennis (L.), in Greenland. Substantial new contributions are: (1) the presentation of 132 Auk bones from seven archaeological sites, and (2) a translation of Otto Fabricius's original handwritten notes on the Great Auk in Greenland. A description of the Greenlandic Great Auk's zoogeography and biology is given as well as a description of the Inuit's Great Auk hunting methods and of their use of Great Auk products. Main conclusions are: (1) P. impennis probably occurred further north in Greenland c. 2000 BC than in historical times; (2) c. 1500 BC P. impennis possibly nested in West Greenland; (3) Between 1350 and 1800 AD Great Auks originating from breeding colonies near Newfoundland or Iceland wintered on the banks off West Greenland from Cape Farewell in the south to Maniitsoq in the north; (4) Great Auks were breeding in Southwest Greenland in small numbers in the 1760's and 1770'...

Seabirds are the most threatened of any living group of birds, continuing a larger pattern of elevated Holocene bird extinctions on islands and coastlines. The Great Auk (Charadriiformes: Pinguinus impennis) was found on both coasts of the Atlantic during the Holocene until its last sighting on Iceland in 1844. Far more is known about the population structure and genetic diversity of NE Atlantic populations, and the latest surviving populations were documented from the British Isles in 1834. While sightings from Canada suggest Great Auks disappeared by 1800, no systematic evaluation of extinction timing has been conducted for this coast. Determining extinction timing of the Great Auk in Maine allows a comparison to be made to populations in other areas of the Atlantic Ocean, and raises the question: was the Maine population’s fate different due to regional, cultural, or other factors? There is a single eye-witness record in the late 17th century at “Black Point”, now Scarborough, Maine. To address this gap, we compiled a radiocarbon dataset on associated material from Maine archaeological shell middens. These 91 dates from 13 sites situate the Great Auk in Maine from about 180 to 4,555 years before present. The majority of these dates are from charcoal samples, but also include shells, ceramics, and bone, and cultural contexts span the Middle and Late Ceramic Periods. To account for differences in stratigraphic control and sampling material, we assigned quality scores, and used these scores to run a sensitivity analysis in extinction timing with the GRIWM model. Disentangling the spatiotemporal dynamics of the Great Auk extinction in Maine is useful in determining how to conserve current species in decline and modern insular seabirds in Maine, such as the puffin. Future study will include new radiocarbon dating of bones as well as isotopic and morphometric analysis to unfold more chapters of the Maine Great Auk’s narrative.

We measured the bones of extinct great auks Pinguinis impennis that were killed during recent centuries on Funk Island off the northeast coast of Newfoundland. Comparisons of these measurements with those taken elsewhere suggest that great auks from Funk Island, which is situated in a Low Arctic oceanographic region, were larger than conspecifics from Boreal oceanographic regions. This finding is supported by extant alcid species that inhabit Boreal, Low Arctic or Boreal through High Arctic ocean regions and tend to increase in body size with increasing latitude (generally decreasing sea surface temperature). We suggest that paleoecological sea surface temperatures and food webs may have favored oceanographic-related variation in body sizes of great auks. The variances of the bone sizes of great auks from Funk Island were not less than those of a sample of great auk bones collected from Scandinavian archaeological sites that cover an extensive geographic range and that span seven millenia. This finding is inconsistent with a previously suggested latitudinal cline in body size among great auks in Scandinavia. Research techniques and studies that could address questions of great auk feeding ecology and population genetics are considered.

The existing challenges to non-profit heritage organisations are increasing in these volatile and austere climates. Particularly, existing organisational and strategic mission developments are needed to enable more resilient organisations. This paper explores the relationship between Ionad Hiort and the Glasgow School of Art’s Institute of Design Innovation (INDI) as a six-month case study for understanding how design innovation can build creative capabilities within this unique partnership. In this case, the “building” of a new type of heritage centre on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis in Scotland. It focuses on the concept of innovation in approaching complex situations as an alternative to existing means of problem solving. Through a series of workshops and engaging informal sessions a new strategy was built, which focused the group’s potential. The outcome being a new way to build confidence within communities and build new relationships, enabling new creative capabilities within a rural island community.

Stable isotopic ratios of animal tissues are related to those of their foods and can be used in palaeoecological reconstructions, including those of extinct animals. Nitrogen isotopic analyses of marine organisms from coastal Newfoundland and Georges Bank were used to construct a model predicting collagen δ15N values for seabirds feeding at various trophic levels (TL). This model was tested by measuring bone collagen δ15N values of extant alcids from the northwest Atlantic and high Arctic. Isotopic analysis of bone collagen of the extinct great auk (Pinguinus impennis), the last flightless seabird in the northern hemisphere, indicate that this species occupied a trophic continuum from TL3 (crustacean diets) to TL5 (diets of piscivorous fish). We suggest that (a) great auk chicks and juveniles occupied lower trophic levels and probably consumed euphausiids, and (b) great auks fed offspring via regurgitation, as do dovekies (Alle alle), the only extant fully planktivorous alcid in the Atlantic, and unrelated penguins of the southern hemisphere.

The great auk was once abundant and distributed across the North Atlantic. It is now extinct, having been heavily exploited for its eggs, meat, and feathers. We investigated the impact of human hunting on its demise by integrating genetic data, GPS-based ocean current data, and analyses of population viability. We sequenced complete mitochondrial genomes of 41 individuals from across the species’ geographic range and reconstructed population structure and population dynamics throughout the Holocene. Taken together, our data do not provide any evidence that great auks were at risk of extinction prior to the onset of intensive human hunting in the early 16th century. In addition, our population viability analyses reveal that even if the great auk had not been under threat by environmental change, human hunting alone could have been sufficient to cause its extinction. Our results emphasise the vulnerability of even abundant and widespread species to intense and localised exploitation.

The great auk was once abundant and distributed across the North Atlantic. It is now extinct, having been heavily exploited for its eggs, meat, and feathers. We investigated the impact of human hunting on its demise by integrating genetic data, GPS-based ocean current data, and analyses of population viability. We sequenced complete mitochondrial genomes of 41 individuals from across the species' geographic range and reconstructed population structure and population dynamics throughout the Holocene. Taken together, our data do not provide any evidence that great auks were at risk of extinction prior to the onset of intensive human hunting in the early 16th century. In addition, our population viability analyses reveal that even if the great auk had not been under threat by environmental change, human hunting alone could have been sufficient to cause its extinction. Our results emphasise the vulnerability of even abundant and widespread species to intense and localised exploitation.

The primitive race of Soay sheep from the St Kilda archipelago in northwest Scotland has played an important role in narratives of the history of domestic sheep. The Soays, apparently a ‘Bronze Age’ race of sheep, were probably confined to the precipitous isle of Soay as soon as ‘Iron Age’ sheep were introduced to Hirta, St Kilda's main island, owing to the competitive edge of the ferocious Soay rams over the new arrivals. In the 1880s, Pitt-Rivers, following his archaeozoological interests, was the first to keep Soays in his park, their epic journey from the edge of the Atlantic to southern England enabled by his acquaintance with their owner. In the early twentieth century, Soays featured in animal bone reports for archaeological sites, were kept in parks and involved in breeding experiments, particularly around Horsham, Sussex (where their owner lived), and in Edinburgh. The transfer of 107 Soays to Hirta in 1934 and 1935, after humans had evacuated St Kilda, was a remarkable feat, enabling the important long-running Soay Sheep Project. The historical exploitation of ‘feral’ Soay sheep by the islanders of St Kilda has significant cultural ramifications.

One hundred and seventy-three years ago, the last two Great Auks, Pinguinus impennis, ever reliably seen were killed. Their internal organs can be found in the collections of the Natural History Museum of Denmark, but the location of their skins has remained a mystery. In 1999, Great Auk expert Errol Fuller proposed a list of five potential candidate skins in museums around the world. Here we take a palaeogenomic approach to test which—if any—of Fuller’s candidate skins likely belong to either of the two birds. Using mitochondrial genomes from the five candidate birds (housed in museums in Bremen, Brussels, Kiel, Los Angeles, and Oldenburg) and the organs of the last two known individuals, we partially solve the mystery that has been on Great Auk scholars’ minds for generations and make new suggestions as to the whereabouts of the still-missing skin from these two birds.

In this final contribution on the identification of the birds painted in the Palaeolithic Grotte Cosquer as Great Auks, it is noticed that the birds need to be seen within a Palaeolithic hunter–gatherer's view of the world, which is not the same as that of a modern natural historian or taxonomist.

The hunting of the great auk ( Pinguinus impennis), which led to its extinction in the mid-nineteenth century, is well documented. However, the discovery of archives providing new details on this species is a rare event. A manuscript dealing with seabirds and their ‘fishing’, written in 1720–1722 by François Le Masson du Parc (1671–1741), an attaché for the Normandy maritime administration, was acquired in 2019 from an auction house. This unpublished and unstudied manuscript comprises the sixth and final volume of the ‘Histoire des pesches’. As part of a national policy to regulate French maritime fisheries, Le Masson du Parc completed the description of marine resources and fisheries in his ‘Histoire des pesches’ which was abundantly illustrated by Pierre Le Chevalier (1688–after 1763). However, this monumental work was never published and the manuscripts were dispersed after the author's death. The section recently purchased provides valuable information on the spatiotemporal evolution of many populations of North Atlantic seabirds, including the great auk, in a context of anthropogenic pressures. This species is named using several hitherto unknown Latin and vernacular names of great importance for the exploration or reinterpretation of archives. It is mentioned as common and one of the most popular birds consumed by cod fishermen on the banks of Newfoundland and that it was caught using baited hooks from boats. The text is accompanied by two illustrations, including a life drawing of three great auks, which are among the oldest known illustrations of the species. These 300-year-old archives constitute a valuable testimony for the historical ecology of this iconic, extinct bird.

-Common Murres (Uria aalge) exhibit an unusual molt sequence. Primary molt begins at a focus between P4 and P7 and progresses in two rapid concurrent waves, proximally to P1, and distally to P10. The only other birds known to have a similar molt sequence are caracaras and falcons (Falconidae), parrots (Psittaciformes), and Pied Kingfishers (Ceryle rudis). Great Auks (Pinguinus impennis) also appear to have followed the same primary-molt sequence. Phylogenies for the Alcidae indicate that Great Auks, Common Murres, Thickbilled Murres (Uria lomvia), Razorbills (Alca torda), and Dovekies (Alle alle) share a common ancestor and are more closely related to one another than to other alcids. This suggests that the unusual sequence of primary molt in Common Murres is a shared-derived character that occurs in the other four species in their clade but has been overlooked. Adult male Common Murres have significantly shorter secondaries and longer primaries, on average, than do adult females, resulting in a slightly higher aspect ratio in males. Secondary molt begins when primary molt is more than one-third completed. Secondaries are replaced rapidly but sequentially (not synchronously or simultaneously); molt appears to proceed from two foci, proximally from S1 to S4, and both proximally and distally from S8, but more data are needed to clarify this point. Rectrix molt begins when primary molt is two-thirds completed. Rectrix loss and replacement occur rapidly, possibly synchronously, and in no apparent order. Adults molt about two weeks later than nonbreeding subadults. We found no differences in the timing of molt between the sexes in adults or subadults. Duration of flight-feather molt can vary from less than 25 days to more than 80 days, possibly reflecting interyear variation in prey abundance. Received 12 February 1997, accepted 9 December 1997. RELATIVE TO MOST OTHER TOPICS in ornithology, virtually all aspects of the molting process are poorly documented and understood (Pyle et al. 1987, Jenni and Winkler 1994). This is especially true in seabirds because most species, including all species that become flightless during molt, undergo molt at sea during the nonbreeding season (Palmer 1962, Glutz von Blotzheim and Bauer 1982, Cramp 1977, 1983, Warham 1996). Among alcids, molt has been better studied in Common Murres (Uria aalge) than in many other species (Verwey 1922, 1924, Salomonsen 1944, Stresemann and Stresemann 1966, Birkhead and Taylor 1977), but many aspects of their molt remain poorly known (contra Harris and Wanless 1990). As an extension of studies on seabird entanglement in gill nets in Puget Sound (Thompson et al. 1998), we studied molt in Common 4E-mail: thompcwt@dfw.wa.gov Murres. The phenology of breeding in Common Murres differs by two months or more among geographic areas. Thus, flight-feather molt scores in postbreeding adults might be useful for identifying breeding location (e.g. Oregon vs. Washington); this is important for determining the demographic effect of mortality caused by gill nets or other anthropogenic activities on different breeding populations of Common Murres. MATERIALS AND METHODS In 1993, commercial gill net fisheries occurred for summer sockeye salmon (Onchorhynchus nerka) in northern Puget Sound and for fall chum salmon (0. keta) in Hood Canal and central Puget Sound, Washington (Pierce et al. 1994). To evaluate various modified gill net designs, test fisheries were done in 1993 by Washington Sea Grant, and in 1993 and 1996 by Washington Sea Grant and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Entangled seabirds were collected: (1) from commercial fisheries in 1993 from 1

This paper discusses a Virtual Histories project, which developed a digital reconstruction of the St Kilda archipelago. St Kilda is the most western part of the United Kingdom. It is a world heritage site for both built and natural environment. The Virtual St Kilda acted as a focus for the collection and presentation of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. It was on show as an exhibition in the Taigh Chearsabah museum (Fig. 5) located in North Uist Scotland. The exhibition is built around the OpenSimulator Open Virtual World server, using commodity hardware. The simulation covers some 4 square km of virtual space, and models both tangible and intangible culture. It is integrated into the exhibition, which articulates an interpretation of the St Kilda legacy through the prism of contemporary North Uist life.

The St Kilda archipelago is a World Heritage Site holding internationally important populations of a number of seabird species. Great Skuas first bred at St Kilda in 1963, and numbers there rose steadily until 1990. Since then, a rapid expansion has occurred, with the population size increasing on Hirta, the main island in the archipelago, at a rate of 22.1% per annum between 1994 and 1997. In total, 233 pairs were occupying territories at St Kilda in 1997. A simple model suggests that as many as 50% of the birds recruited to Hirta between 1994 and 1997 were immigrants from other colonies. Comparison of breeding data collected in different areas gave no indication that the higher nest density resulting from the recent influx was having any detrimental effect on annual productivity and it seems likely that Great Skuas will continue to increase, at least in the near future. Given the importance of seabird prey in the diet of Great Skuas at St Kilda, the continued expansion in numbers of this species gives some cause for concern. However, because immigration plays a large role in the population dynamics of Great Skuas at this site, any attempts to limit population growth by small-scale culling of adults or reduction of reproductive output is unlikely to succeed, and might result in a decline in recruitment at other colonies of this rare and vulnerable species.