Natural History:
My animal, the great auk, has many interesting facts about it, like
some people believe that the great auk was the original penguin because
the word penguin refers to white patches in front of its eyes and that
describes the appearance of the great auk. Also, the great auk was
discovered before the Europeans traveled to the Southern hemisphere and
discovered
the penguin.
Another interesting story is that in 1844, a small island off
the coast of Scotland was home to a lone great auk. A severe storm hit
the island. Days later the local folks saw a great auk and accused it
of starting the storm, so the locals put it on trial for witchcraft and
they found it guilty and they decided to stone it to death. Fears like
this contributed to the
extinction of the great auk.
The great auk was a
warm-blooded bird that is in the
phylum
Chordata, which all
vertebrate are in, and it
was the last flightless bird of the Northern hemisphere. It was a great
predator that didn’t have to
scavenge for its food. They
were able to swim at
speeds of 10 to 25 mph and to dive distances of 225 feet. In fact, the
great
auk was such a great swimmer they had a canoe named after it that was
big,
fast, and agile. It was made by a canoe company called Guillemot kayaks.
The great auk belonged in the family Acidae or Auk which includes
species of animals such as, puffins, razorbills, and dovekies, just
to name a few. An interesting thing about the auks is that they
all
seem to act and look somewhat like penguins. There are now 22 living
species of auk.
Sailors on long journeys found these animals as good
prey to
catch because they could catch them without much effort when they were
on land and they were a good supply of meat and oil to all of the
sailors on board.
Habitat:
The great auk's
habitat was found almost everywhere in
the Northern hemisphere, including the northern sections of the
Atlantic
and in the Arctic ocean. Thousands of years before its extinction the
great auk lived in places as far away as the Mediterranean Sea, but
around
the time they became extinct they were found hunting around Iceland,
Scotland, Greenland, and Newfoundland.
The great auks’ breeding grounds were usually found on uninhabited
islands where the
population reached numbers of thousands of
great auks that occupied the islands. During its migration it was
sometimes seen in New England. It was rarely found south of that.
Present Status:
The great auk became
extinct
in 1844.
Physical Description:
The great auk was a fairly large bird that looked almost exactly like a
penguin because of its upright posture and the fact that it can’t fly.
The great auk had black on most of its head and on all of its back for
protection against its predators that may kill it when it is floating.
It had a white apron on its chest and white patches in front of its
eyes.
The great auk had short stubby wings about the size of a full grown
human hand and webbed feet so they could swim at a fast pace. But
on land the great auk was a easy catch for predators because it waddled
on land at a slow pace because it couldn’t walk very well. The great
auk had no eyelids, just a layer covering their eyes. The great auk was
around 25 to 30 inches tall and weighed around 11 lbs.
Diet and Feeding Habits:
The great auk was a
carnivorious consumer that fed on
marine animals in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans by diving deep
distances and propelling itself rapidly through the water to catch its
prey. Its webbed feet helped it steer through the water. It fed
on shorthorn sculpins, lumpsuckers, capelins, sticklebacks, small cods,
and herring. May through October was the breeding season for the great
auk. The rest of the year was spent at sea.
Causes of Extinction:
The great auk became extinct because of over-hunting. In the
early 1600’s, great auks were killed in thousands by sailors looking
for an easy meal on their long trips. Great auks could be caught very
easily on land because they couldn’t walk on land very well and they
had to waddle at slow paces like penguins.
The killing went almost unnoticed until Nova Scotia asked Great
Britain to ban the killing of the great auk. The British agreed and
they put out a law that said anyone caught killing a great auk for its
feathers or eating its eggs would be whipped in public. Fishermen,
though, did not go by the rule and they still killed great auks for
bait.
On June 3rd, 1844, the extinction was complete when an Icelandic bird
collector hired three hunters to get auk specimens for his bird
collection. So the three hunters went out and saw a pair of great auks,
a male and female, and their egg. The hunters’ shot the pair of great
auks and crushed the egg. Without the hunters' or collectors'
knowledge,
they completed the extinction of the last two great auks.
There were rumors that people saw great auks in the 1850’s but the
rumor was canceled out because what they probably saw were razorbills,
a relative of the great auk that looks somewhat similar.
Personal Essay:
“What is the value of
wilderness
to modern society?” The answer is that the wilderness doesn’t
mean as much to modern society as I would like. I say this
because I’m seeing people like George Bush trying to drill oil in the
Alaskan wilderness where it is basically the last place in the U.S.A.
that doesn’t have a McDonald’s or a Walmart around every corner and has
not been vastly explored. I understand that George Bush is
probably doing this so he doesn’t have to
keep on buying oil from the “Evil Doers” in the Middle East, but it is
possible
that we could find more sources of energy to run the things in our
daily
life.
Another example is in the Amazon Rain forest where loggers are
clear-cutting most of the trees in the rain forest. In a
few
hundred years kids my age may be hearing about what the Amazon Rain
forest
was like 100 years ago, just like I’m finding out what the great auk
was
like 200 years ago.
What I have learned from this expedition is how mankind destroyed
helpless species like the great auk for feathers that women thought
would look good on their hats or people just killing animals for the
fun of it just to get a few bucks. I wonder what would happen if all of
our birds became extinct and we never really saw them to be what they
are right now, beautiful flying creatures that have been loved and
hated.
I hope that people can stop killing innocent animals for a stuffed head
in their living room just to brag about their masculinity and toughness
and then just to throw away in two weeks because they got bored of it
or their friends didn't like it.
Bibliography:
1.
Great Auk. August 9, 2002.
http://home.conceptfa.nl/~pmaas/greatauk.htm.
(March 3, 2003)
2. Burning, Donald. “Auks.” World Book Encyclopedia. 2001
