Who Killed the Great Auk?

ISBN-13: 9780198564782 / Angielski / Twarda / 2001 / 242 str.

Jeremy Gaskell

Opis

Part scientific mystery, part cultural history, part intellectual archaeology, Who Killed the Great Auk? vividly tells the story of the extinction that helped launch the first conservation movement.
The Great Auk was a large, flightless bird with tiny wings and an enormous beak. Its clumsy, erect gait on land made it an easy target for sailors and landsmen alike, who hunted it for its ample flesh and soft down, and eagerly gathered its eggs. Over time, the Great Auk began to appear less frequently; then rarely; then never again. By the end of the nineteenth century, even the most intrepid explorers could no longer find this once-common bird. Gaskell shows how the Great Auk's disappearance became a cause celebre. It sparked a frenzy among collectors, fascinated writers such as Charles Kingsley, and obsessed such influential ornithologists as John Wolley and John James Audubon, who helped push for the first legislation to protect seabirds. But as Gaskell shows, the extinction of the Great Auk was not a straightforward tale of overhunting. In this subtle, nuanced book, he reveals the ways in which its fate was inextricably bound up with the social, economic, and political history of the time.
Who Killed the Great Auk? is nature writing at its best. From the journey of Audubon to Labrador to the hardships of life in early Newfoundland, it takes readers on a tour of some of the wildest and coldest places on earth. And at the end of the story, we understand a little more clearly how we came to value even the oddest inhabitants of the natural world.

Recenzje

"This little book is a fitting memorial to the lost penguin of the northern seas. It's a labour of love."

O autorze

Jeremy A. Gaskell, c/o A M Gaskell, Lyndale, Luxborough, Watchet, Somerset, TA23 0SJ impennis44@hotmail.com Jeremy Gaskell's interest in the Great Auk dates from his teens, when he first planned a visit to its traditional breeding grounds in Iceland. An active ornithologist, he has travelled as far afield as Thailand, and has also acquired extensive knowledge of the birds of the Middle East. He is the author of a number of articles and academic papers on subjects as diverse as the early history of British ornithology, and seabird identification. In 1998 he broadcast a history of the Great Auk on the BBC World Service.