Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
On the North American side, eider down initially was preferred, but once the eiders were nearly driven to extinction in the 1770s, down collectors switched to the great auk at the same time that hunting for food, fishing bait, and oil decreased. [50] [19]: 329 The great auk had disappeared from Funk Island by 1800.
A taxidermized Great Auk The great auk (or, as it has been nicknamed, the “Penguin of the North”) was a flightless marine bird that inhabited the North Atlantic Ocean and its nearby islands. Its range once extended to the continental United States and Europe. [ 21 ]
Hunting pressure can be for food, sport, feathers, or even come from scientists collecting museum specimens. Collection of great auks for museums pushed the already rare species to extinction. The harvesting of parrots for the pet trade has led to many species becoming endangered. Between 1986 and 1988 two million parrots were legally imported ...
Great auk: Pinguinus impennis: Northern Atlantic and western Mediterranean Sea Originally hunted for its feathers, meat, fat, and oil; as it grew rare, also to supply collectionists. The last pair on the eastern Atlantic was killed on Eldey Island, off Iceland in 1844. [87]
Hunting [272] and habitat destruction by introduced rabbits, pigs, and goats. [69] Before 1852: Letitia's thorntail: Discosura letitiae: Bolivia: Undetermined. [69] 1852: Great auk: Pinguinus impennis: North Atlantic and western Mediterranean 1988 (IUCN) Hunting. [273] [69] 1853: Lord Howe pigeon: Columba vitiensis godmanae: Lord Howe Island ...
Only a small number of the listed species are globally extinct (most famously the Irish elk, great auk and woolly mammoth). Most of the remainder survive to some extent outside the islands. The list includes introduced species only in cases where they were able to form self-sustaining colonies for a time.
Great auk: Pinguinus impennis: Northern Atlantic and western Mediterranean A sternum found in Madeira is the southernmost record of this species in the eastern Atlantic. [14] The species became extinct globally in 1852. [15]
Their ability to spread further south is restricted as their prey hunting method, pursuit diving, becomes less efficient in warmer waters. The speed at which small fish (which along with krill are the auk's principal prey) can swim doubles as the temperature increases from 5 to 15 °C (41 to 59 °F), with no corresponding increase in speed for ...