On this page

Auks page

Extinct Birds page

The Great Auk, or Garefowl: Its History, Archaeology, and Remains

Symington Grieve

Cambridge University Press

2015

"This 1885 work by Scottish naturalist and scientist Symington Grieve (1850–1932) collects together 'a considerable amount of literature bearing upon the 'History, Archaeology, and Remains' of this extinct bird'. The material includes articles on the historic distribution of the great auk, its known habits, its various names, and information on all the surviving specimens, whether stuffed, skeletal, bones, or eggs. The book is illustrated with drawings and lithographs of auk remains, and an appendix supplies historical and contemporary documents on the auk from all over Europe."

The Great Auk: The Extinction of the Original Penguin

Errol Fuller

2003

This book about the extinction of the Great Auk "recounts this tale of destruction and reminds us what we, as a species, have done and are still doing to the world around us."

The Last Great Auk

Allan W. Eckert

2003

A fictional account of the lives of Great Auks.

Extinct: Great Auk

Simon Furman

2003

A tie-in book for children to accompany Extinct, a UK Channel 4 television series. Each of the six programmes in the series focused on an extinct species; dodo, sabre-toothed tiger, great auk, Tasmanian tiger, Irish elk, and woolly mammoth. This book describes the life-cycle of the great auk.

Extinct

Anton Gill and Alex West

2001

This book was published in conjunction with a 6 part TV series which recreated with animatronics and computer modeling the lives of the dodo, sabre-toothed tiger, great auk, Tasmanian tiger, Irish elk and woolly mammoth. The book describes the lives and extinction of these species and provides some information about the making of the series."

Contents: Introduction; Columbian Mammoth; The Concept; Sabre-toothed Tiger; Animatronics; Irish Elk; Locations; Dodo; Backplates; Great Auk; Computer Modelling; Tasmanian Tiger; Computer Animation; Bibliography.

Who Killed The Great Auk

Jeremy Gaskell

2000

"Gaskell takes the reader on a tour of some of the wildest and coldest places on earth as he tries to uncover the facts behind the disappearance of the Great Auk, and the reasons why attempts to save it were in vain. It draws on material from previously unpublished sources and features some of the greatest Victorian ornithologists and pioneers in conservation."

The Great Auk

Errol Fuller

1999

"Perhaps the most curious of all vanished birds, the Great Auk commands an enormous following among naturalists and its strange and mysterious story is told in the pages of this book. Not reliably seen since 1844, this remarkable bird has become one of the great icons of extinction. With more than 200 colour plates and a similar number of black and white pictures, this beautiful book brings together almost every known archival image of the species, along with dramatic photographs of the lonely islands it once inhabitated and intriguing pictures of the many fascinating characters involved in the Great Auk's tragic story." From the book jacket.

The Great Auk: Gone Forever

Emily Crofford

1989

Describes how the Great Auk lived before its extinction in the mid 1800s and discusses the physical characteristics, habits, and breeding of other member of the Auk family and laws to protect these rare birds.

The Great Auk, or Garefowl: Its History, Archaeology, and Remains

Symington Grieve

1885

Opening lines of the introduction: "The following pages have been written in the hope of interesting some in the story of an extinct bird. The whole history of the Great Auk is a sad one - the continued slaughters of the helpless victims culminating in the final destruction of the race on the skerry. named Eldey, off the coast of Iceland, excites to pity. The last of the Great Auks has lived and died. The race was blotted out before naturalists, when too late, discovered it was gone. Regrets are now useless - the living Garefowl is extinct."