For hundreds of thousands of years, Great Auks thrived. And then they
were gone ...
For hundreds of thousands of years Great Auks thrived in the icy seas of
the North Atlantic, bobbing on the waves, diving for fish and struggling
up onto rocky shores to mate and hatch their fluffy chicks. But by 1844,
not a single one of these magnificent birds was alive.
In this stunningly illustrated non-fiction picture book, award-winning
author and illustrator Jan Thornhill tells the tragic story of these
birds that "weighed as much as a sack of potatoes and stood as tall as a
preteen's waist." Their demise came about in part because of their
anatomy. They could swim swiftly underwater, but their small wings meant
they couldn't fly and their feet were so far back on their bodies, they
couldn't walk very well. Still the birds managed to escape their
predators much of the time ... until humans became seafarers.
Great Auks were pursued first by Vikings, then by Inuit, Beothuk and
finally European hunters. Their numbers rapidly dwindled. They became
collectors' items -- their skins were stuffed for museums, to be
displayed along with their beautiful eggs. (There are some amazing
stories about these stuffed auks -- one was stolen from a German museum
during WWII by Russian soldiers; another was flown to Iceland and given
a red-carpet welcome at the airport.)
Although undeniably tragic, the final demise of the Great Auk led to the
birth of the conservation movement. Laws were eventually passed to
prevent the killing of birds during the nesting season, and similar laws
were later extended to other wildlife species.
Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language
Arts:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.3
Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical,
scientific, or technical text, including what happened and why, based on
specific information in the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.4
Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words or
phrases in a text relevant to a grade 4 topic or subject area.
