Reykjavik until 2008, when the institute was restructured by the Icelandic
government. At that point, another agency was supposed to create a new
home for the bird, but various mishaps, including Iceland’s financial
crisis, had prevented this from happening, which is why Count Raben’s
auk was sitting on its fake rock in the corner of the storeroom. On the
rock, there was a painted inscription, which Guðmundsson translated for
me: THE BIRD WHO IS HERE FOR SHOW WAS KILLED IN 1821. IT IS ONE OF THE FEW GREAT AUKS
THAT STILL EXIST.
IN its heyday, which is to say, before humans figured out how to reach
its nesting grounds, the great auk ranged from Norway over to
Newfoundland and from Italy to Florida, and its population probably
numbered in the millions. When the first settlers arrived in Iceland from
Scandinavia, great auks were so common that they were regularly eaten
for dinner, and their remains have been found in the tenth-century
equivalent of household trash. While I was in Reykjavik, I visited a
museum built over the ruins of what’s believed to be one of the most
ancient structures in Iceland—a longhouse constructed out of strips of
turf. According to one of the museum’s displays, the great auk was “easy
prey” for Iceland’s medieval inhabitants. In addition to a pair of auk
bones, the display featured a video re-creation of an early encounter
between man and bird. In the video, a shadowy figure crept along a rocky
shore toward a shadowy auk. When he drew close enough, the figure
pulled out a stick and clubbed the animal over the head. The auk
responded with a cry somewhere between a honk and a grunt. I found the
video grimly fascinating and watched it play through a half a dozen times.
Creep, clobber, squawk. Repeat.
As best as can be determined, great auks lived much as penguins do. In
fact, great auks were the original “penguins.” They were called this—the
etymology of “penguin” is obscure and may or may not be traced to the
Latin pinguis, meaning “fat”—by European sailors who encountered them
in the North Atlantic. Later, when subsequent generations of sailors met