THE GREAT AUK: Its Extraordinary Life, Hideous Death and Mysterious Afterlife

The great auk was fat, flush with feathers, and easy to capture. Places like Funk Island, off northeast Newfoundland, became scenes of the unimaginable slaughter of millions of birds. Private collectors scrambled for specimens of the final few birds, beginning a bloody, unthinking destruction of one of the world's most extraordinary species. Illustrated in color.