Great Auk

Status Extinct. The former status in Nova Scotia of this large, flightless relative of the Razorbill is now difficult to determine. The only evidence of its having occurred here is provided by a number of bones which John S. Erskine discovered in shell heaps, the first during 1957 at Scotch Point, Port Joli, Queens County. There he found many bird bones, one later identified by Godfrey (1959a) as the left humerus of a Great Auk. The formation of this shell heap was provisionally dated by Erskine to about the fourteenth century. He subsequently made two more discoveries in shell heaps at St. Margaret's Bay, Halifax County, and at Mahone Bay, Lunenburg County. Among the many bird bones found at both locations, Dr. Pierce Brodkorb of the University of Florida has identified some of the Great Auk. Dr. Brodkorb dated both heaps as having been formed during the thirteenth century.

The last record of living Great Auks is that of two killed in Iceland on 3 June 1844. Downs (1888) supposed that the species was formerly common here, but the only definite information he presented refers to Newfoundland. Some ornithologists have considered the birds killed with sticks by Champlain's men on the Mud Islands, Yarmouth County, about 20 May 1604 to have been Great Auks; however, as Godfrey (1959a) has pointed out, these were probably Northern Gannets. Grieve (1885), on his distribution chart, indicated Cape Breton Island as a breeding place for the Great Auk. This was based, however, on the rather flimsy evidence of Fisher (in Hakluyt 1600), whose party landed on Cape Breton Island in summer 1593 but, harassed by Indians, remained only briefly. They "saw divers beastes and foules, as black Foxes, Deers, Otters, great Foules with redde legges, Pengwyns, and certain others." In his account of the natural resources of Acadia (the Maritime Provinces and southern Newfoundland) in the middle of the seventeenth century, Nicholas Denys reported seeing the species far offshore but made no mention of colonies (Allen 1939).

Remarks So much has been published regarding the wholesale slaughter of these flightless, hence helpless, birds on their breeding grounds that it seems needless to retell the sad tale here. Those who wish to read of the barbarous methods that eventually resulted in the bird's extinction may consult Bent (1919).