Awesome documentary on the Great Auk

Post Reply New Topic

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy7eCDobl3M[/youtube]

Thanks.
Great documentary

Very good doc.
Much obliged!!
If you find other doc's please post them.
Thank you.

Sure!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXIlJIHkxog[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQM61STHNJk[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=960EnokSPcA[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dDjX5WKHS4[/youtube]


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPVglOo5qAo[/youtube]

I liked the doc about the great auk, most of it. I guess extinct animals has been a special interest of mine (but I didn´t know I was an aspie then, does that count?).

As mentioned, I like most of it, but: The tv company, as usual, makes a big deal out of the collecting of dead animals. The scientists in the documentary explain that hunting for meat and feathers had diminished the species to a few birds. Furter there is one guy who elaborates about the fact that they probably were communal breeders (would only reproduce if there is a lot of them, like the passenger pidgeons). So would they really have surrived if the last pair had not been sampled? probably not! (insert here: more biological theory on bottleneck populations, communal breding etc.).

I know that it makes the story more dramatic and tv people like the simple and colourful explanations - but it is not nessesarily the right explanation.

Hope this makes sense.

The last Great Auk to be seen in the UK was killed in 1840, so the very last one was just 4 years after. In the biggest museum in Glasgow (Kelivingrove), there's a display paying tribute to the bird. There's an electronic storybook, telling the story of the last encounter in the UK, which kids seem to love although it's very tragic. The last sighting was on an islet off St Kilda, the remotest part of the British Isles. According to the story, the men thought it was a witch and that it had caused a great storm, so they killed it.

@ Master P

Thanks!