When worlds collide: The lesson of the great auk

Great auks were once common in the waters of the North Atlantic.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reports that these birds lived in scattered colonies across the ocean. They only bred on remote, rocky islands around Canada, Greenland, Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Iceland and the UK.

Although great auks look similar to penguins, they’re not actually related. However, they shared some lifestyle similarities – great auks also couldn’t fly and the adults spent much of their time diving into the water to feed on fish.

The death of a species

The demise of the great auk was not down to habitat loss but human exploitation. The last living bird was seen in 1852, after the rest of its species had been killed for feathers, meat, fat and oil.

Great auks waddled awkwardly on land, making them easy prey for hunters. They were slaughtered in huge numbers when they came ashore to breed.

European fishermen and whalers devastated the largest colony, in Newfoundland, despite a petition in 1775 to stop the massacre.

In the early 1800s, the birds were even more prized as they became steadily rarer. Collectors paid huge sums for just a single egg or skin. Demand from museums and collectors dealt a final, deadly blow in 1844, when the last unfortunate breeding pair fled in vain from hunters, who also crushed their single egg.

The great auk has now become a powerful symbol of the damage humans can cause.

Douglas Russell, our Senior Curator of Birds, says, “the threats facing our flora and fauna are as great, if not greater, than they were when we lost the great auk. Their demise, just a few generations ago, was ultimately down to centuries of relentless human exploitation.”

The last specimen

The male great auk pictured above was taken from Papa Westray, one of the Orkney Islands, off the northern tip of Scotland.

It’s the only certainly British specimen that still exists, and before it died it was part of the last pair in the country.

Collected from the island in May 1813, it was purchased by the British Museum in 1819 after its original owner, William Bullock, sold his entire vast collection of natural history specimens.

New research

In 2017, our scientists began a groundbreaking project to compare the microstructure of three great auk eggshells from the collections we care for to those of their living relatives. This work, completed in in collaboration with the University of Sheffield, provided new insights into the birds’ breeding ecology.

Meanwhile, researchers have also used genetics to discover the whereabouts of the last pair of great auks, tracing them to museums in Belgium and Ohio, USA.

Where can you see a great auk?

You can find a specimen of a great auk in our Treasures Gallery.