Forever

A taxidermy representation of a Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis), a species hunted to extinction by the mid-19th century. This was the largest Alcid, up to a three feet tall and weighing some 11 lbs. They were flightless but excellent swimmers in the cold, fish rich waters of the north. The bird’s scientific name was later applied to similar but unrelated swimming birds of the southern hemisphere, since those “penguins” reminded Europeans of the Pinguinus of their home seas. Initially, the Great Auks were hunted for their down, to stuff pillows, then for their fat, finally for their very rareness; collectors wanted specimens and their eggs — egg collecting was once huge — before it was too late. We actually know the names of the Icelanders who killed what are generally considered to be very last ones on the planet, a breeding pair, no less, for the benefit of a collector, as someday we may know the name of the fisherman who catches the last giant bluefin to hosannas of media hype over the hundreds of thousands of dollars he will be able to sell it for before he too becomes a minor note in the history of destruction. Today there are 78 Great Auk skins in museums around the world, along with 75 eggs and 24 complete skeletons. This skin is in the Academy of Natural Sciences in a ghostly diorama of the past. On the right are male and female Labrador ducks (Camptorhynchus labradorius), which were once found in the waters off NY and NJ; they were gone by 1875. On the left, the Eskimo Curlew (Numenius borealis) which lasted, on Barbados at least, until the year of my birth, 1963.