The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

“Regulations,” he shrugged. Ármannsson had also brought along his
fishing partner and a cooler filled with soda and cookies. He seemed
pleased to be making a trip that didn’t involve cod.
We motored out of the harbor and headed south, around the
Reykjanes Peninsula. It was clear enough that we could see the snow-
covered peak of Snæfellsjökull, more than sixty miles away. (To English
speakers, Snæfellsjökull is probably best known as the spot where in Jules
Verne’s A Journey to the Center of the Earth the hero finds a tunnel through
the globe.) Eldey, being much shorter than Snæfellsjökull, was not yet
visible. Sveinsson explained that Eldey’s name means “fire island.” He said
that although he’d spent his entire life in the area, he’d never before been
out to it. He’d brought along a fancy camera and was shooting pictures
more or less continuously.
As Sveinnson snapped away, I chatted with Ármannsson inside the
Stella’s small cabin. I was intrigued to see that he had dramatically
different colored eyes, one blue and one hazel. Usually, he told me, he
fished for cod using a long line that extended six miles and trailed twelve
thousand hooks. The baiting of the hooks was his father’s job, and it took
nearly two days. A good catch could weigh more than seven metric tons.
Often Ármannsson slept on the Stella, which was equipped with a
microwave and two skinny berths.
After a while, Eldey appeared on the horizon. The island looked like
the base of an enormous column, or like a giant pedestal waiting for an
even more gigantic statue. When we got within maybe a mile, I could see
that the top of the island, which from a distance appeared flat, was
actually tilted at about a ten-degree angle. We were approaching from the
shorter end, so we could look across the entire surface. It was white and
appeared to be rippling. As we got closer, I realized that the ripples were
birds—so many that they seemed to blanket the island—and when we got
even closer, I could see that the birds were gannets—elegant creatures
with long necks, cream-colored heads, and tapered beaks. Sveinsson
explained that Eldey was home to one of the world’s largest colonies of