The Last Of Its Kind - The Search For The Great Auk And The Discovery of Extinction

Just finished reading "The Last Of Its Kind - The Search For The Great Auk And The Discovery of Extinction" by Gisli Palsson, published by Princeton University Press.
Perhaps one of the bitterest of ironies behind the Victorian scientific expedition of British ornithologists John Wolley and Alfred Newton in the 1860s is that one of the mail goals of their expedition was to kill up to eight Great Auks and collect eggs with the intent of selling some of their specimens to collectors all in the name of "science." Keep in mind that this was before it became accepted and acknowledged by the scientific community that extinction is real and can be caused by humans and natural activity like volcanic eruptions, both of which helped to kill off the Great Auk.
Palsson explores the history and events behind the Great Auk expedition by Wolley and Newton, which they funded themselves, and how their discovery changed the scientific thinking of their time. He also explores the possibility of de-extinction, but curiously doesn't mention how it could bring the Great Auk back, but he correctly notes that environmental conditions of the present may not favor bringing a species back.
Strongly Recommended.
Five Stars.









https://www.amazon.com/Last-Its-Kind-...