![]() When three Icelanders, Jón Brandsson, Ketill Ketilsson and Sigurður Ísleifsson, climbed the island-rock Eldey, off the south-western coast of Iceland, in the summer of 1844 two Great Auks that they had spotted were easy prey. ![]() It even walked awkwardly and as a matter of fact, that very same word may be a derivation of its name. ![]() The Great Auk was a great swimmer but it could not fly. But even if the stuffed bird in Brussels would all of a sudden come alive it could not fly away and join the pigeons and crows loitering around the adjacent European Parliament. The stuffed bird can be found in the Royal Belgian Scientific Museum a stones-throw from the European institutions in Brussels. ![]() DNA research has recently established that a stuffed bird in the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels is in all likelihood the world´s last living Great Auk, caught in Iceland in 1844. The Great Auk was a relatively frequent sight on the shores of the North Atlantic until the 19th century. ![]() Now, in the time of mass extinction, its saga deserves deeper exploration than ever before. As world leaders are meeting at the UN General Assembly to discuss “urgent action on biodiversity” on 30 September 2020, a new study shows how the Great Auk -a common sea-bird – went extinct without anyone lifting a finger in the 19th century.įor a long time, the Great Auk has been a symbol of extinction, along with the Dodo. ![]()
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