Auks: One of the World’s “Extinct” Creatures
I’m in search of exhibit Number 49. Inside a small, darkened room with the sanctity of a shrine, I find an altar-like shelf upon which, in a halo of soft light, sit four glass apothecary jars. In the right-hand jar, preserved in an amber fluid, are the eyes of the last pair of great auk killed on Eldey, the same eyes that saw the boat, and extinction, approaching in 1844. The jar to the left
contains their two perfect hearts. It’s hard not to imagine those final, panicked, pulsing beats 175 years ago as their species died out forever. The last great auks – preserved forever in legend and 70 percent ethanol in a glass jar on a shelf in Copenhagen. Standing in front of them, head held high, is a great auk.
There are around 80 taxidermy specimens of the great auk in the world’s museums and collections, almost all taken from Eldey between 1830 and 1844.
Peter Hosner, the museum’s assistant professor and curator of birds, pulls open the doors of a large metal cabinet. The bottom shelf is home to the most impressive set of great auk remains on the planet. There are skulls and bones from Funk Island and jars containing the remaining viscera of the Eldey auks.
Their liver, ovaries, intestines, lungs, trachea and syrinx, the bird’s vocal organs, all of which, Peter says, were originally removed and thrown into a barrel of brandy. At the front of the cabinet is one of the museum’s prized possessions: a great auk in white-throated winter plumage, a rarity as almost all other specimens were collected when the birds came ashore to breed in their smart summer attire. Peter points out its frayed wing feathers, which have given rise to the claim that this bird was caged alive for a period. Strangely, neither of the museum’s taxidermy specimens are the birds captured on Eldey in 1844. Although they left their hearts (and other organs) in Copenhagen, the skins of the Eldey auks were sent elsewhere. Their whereabouts are unknown.