Great Auks

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John Pickup
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Re: Great Auks

Post by John Pickup »

When I read The Island Of Adventure for the first time, I was convinced that Jack would find the Great Auk on the island. I was disappointed when he returned with a copper nugget. I can also remember looking at a book of birds in the library at the time and there wasn't a Great Auk in it. There wouldn't have been of course, it was extinct.
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Re: Great Auks

Post by Courtenay »

Just some musings from down under... I can't help thinking, if Jack Trent had ever come to Australia, he might have gone searching for our beautiful Paradise Parrot, which hasn't been seen since 1927 and is now also classed as extinct. :cry:

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Sometimes "lost" birds and other creatures do turn up again - just last year, also in Australia, we had the first ever photographs and video footage of a Night Parrot, a bird that hadn't had a confirmed live sighting for about a century:

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But I'm afraid the Great Auk, like too many others, is gone forever.

Talking of capitalisation, I understand the practice among most bird writers in Australia is to use capitals for the official name of a species, but not when a general type of bird is referred to - for example, "Little Penguin" or "White-plumed Honeyeater", but "penguins" or "honeyeaters" collectively.
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Anita Bensoussane
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Re: Great Auks

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

I wonder what Enid Blyton (and indeed Jack Trent!) would think of this suggestion by scientists that the Great Auk be brought back using DNA from fossils or preserved organs:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016 ... sh-shores/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Francis
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Re: Great Auks

Post by Francis »

Jack has already anticipated their arrival! Personally I am all in favour and would welcome their reappearance.
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Re: Great Auks

Post by Courtenay »

Well, if they really can do it, I'm all for it as well... hope it works! (A slightly safer "de-extinction" attempt, one might say, than Jurassic Park. :mrgreen: )
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Re: Great Auks

Post by Wolfgang »

Anita Bensoussane wrote:I wonder what Enid Blyton (and indeed Jack Trent!) would think of this suggestion by scientists that the Great Auk be brought back using DNA from fossils or preserved organs:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016 ... sh-shores/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The idea is not completely new, it was already discussed for mammoths and Tasmanian wolves, but yes, it could be less complicated for birds compared to mammals because birds don't have to carry out their offsprings.
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Re: Great Auks

Post by Moonraker »

I thought exactly the same thing, Anita!
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Re: Great Auks

Post by Ming »

Courtenay wrote:A slightly safer "de-extinction" attempt, one might say, than Jurassic Park. :mrgreen: )
Quite so! If successful it'd really be a scientific breakthrough, but I don't really know what I think about it. Jack would indeed be delighted, though. :D
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Re: Great Auks

Post by Courtenay »

Lucky Star wrote:The last Great Auk was killed because people thought it was a witch? :shock: Truly the truth is stranger than fiction, what an end for a species.
Apparently it is true — I just found this article online earlier this evening, which explains it all... The bizarre story of Britain's last Great Auk :shock: (Technically it was the last known Great Auk in Britain, not the last one in the world, but bad enough.)

I also found another article on the proposed "de-extinction" of the Great Auk, which got a mention earlier in this thread, but I haven't found anything more recent than 2016, so I don't think they've achieved it yet. The most common argument against such things is that we'd be better off pouring the time and effort and money into saving those species that aren't extinct yet but may be soon if we don't do something... fair enough, but it is an appealing thought that we one day might, just might, be able to see a Great Auk again after all, or some of the other creatures that have disappeared in the last couple of centuries (and usually due to human interference).
Timmy-the-dog wrote: Yes, it does look like a penguin. I think its Latin name actually means penguin, that's from memory too - must look it up :wink:
It does — Pinguinus is the Latin name, and in fact the Great Auk is (or was) the only bird in that genus. It was originally a Welsh term for the Great Auk, "Pen-gwyn", meaning "white head", because of the white patches on its head. When the birds that we now call penguins were discovered in the southern hemisphere, they were given the same name, as they look quite similar to Great Auks, though they aren't closely related (and don't have white heads!).
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Re: Great Auks

Post by IceMaiden »

Not a fan sorry. I don't believe scientists should play God, just because something can be done through the miracle of science doesn't always mean it should. Also, if it really was possible to bring things back from the dead I'd rather give millions of people their relatives back than a bird.
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Re: Great Auks

Post by Wolfgang »

Icemaiden, I suppose there's a big difference between recreating once living species (should their DNA-code be known) and the cloning of an once existing person with its personality. The first process is much simpler. For the time being scientists don't even have a clue how information of personalities (memories, experiences, etc.) are exactly saved in living creatures, or how to transfer them. It is known that some substances can change personalities, but once that happened nobody knows how to revert that process.

But I personally believe we should rather preserve our natural environment than considering recreating species once they have been extinct.
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Re: Great Auks

Post by IceMaiden »

Exactly Wolfgang, I don't agree with messing about with things like that. Where does it end? Who picks what gets 'brought back'? Why should one get a preference over another? What about the problems that would come from resurrecting something back into a world that has long moved on and it no longer fits into? No I don't believe we should be poking around in the natural way of the world, if it's gone then it's a shame but it's gone and that's how it should stay.
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Re: Great Auks

Post by Rob Houghton »

As a child, I always wished the dodo would be brought back! :D And Great Auks too of course! When I first read The Island of Adventure, aged about 9, I found the mention of seeing a Great Auk the most exciting part of the book! Bearing in mind I abandoned the book halfway through as a child and didn't pick it up again until I had the hardback in my late 20's!
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Re: Great Auks

Post by Courtenay »

Rob Houghton wrote:As a child, I always wished the dodo would be brought back! :D And Great Auks too of course! When I first read The Island of Adventure, aged about 9, I found the mention of seeing a Great Auk the most exciting part of the book! Bearing in mind I abandoned the book halfway through as a child and didn't pick it up again until I had the hardback in my late 20's!
And then you were devastated that Jack didn't find a Great Auk after all...? :wink:
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The Adventure Series!

Post by Moonraker »

Merged with the 'Great Auks' topic.


I am unsure to the amount of discussion of the infamous Great Auk on the forums, but you might be interested in this article that I read in the Telegraph, recently:

How Great Auks raised their chicks was a mystery that went unsolved for 300 years – because people kept eating their eggs, a study has found.

The now-extinct flightless seabird actually took about 20 days to fledge, 10 times longer than first thought, according to a study published in the journal British Birds. Sheffield University’s Prof Tim Birkhead, the lead author, said: “The main reason no one saw a Great Auk chick fledge is that anyone who visited a breeding colony [on St Kilda, 100 miles west of the Scottish mainland] took the eggs to eat.”
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