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The Last of its Kind review: How the great auk left an enduring legacy

In 1858, two ornithologists set out to find the great auk. Gísli Pálsson's intriguing account of their failed quest argues it may have shaped modern ideas about extinction and conservation

7 February 2024

F0MN2D Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis). Natural History Museum. University of Oslo. Norway. — The great auk was driven extinct by a scientific market for its eggs and stuffed remains
Oscar Dominguez/Alamy

Gísli Pálsson (Princeton University Press Out now in the US; in the UK 2 April)

IN 1858, John Wolley and Alfred Newton, two British scientists, travelled to Iceland to study the great auk, a large, flightless seabird. They hoped to observe the bird in its natural habitat and perhaps bring home an egg, a skin or a stuffed bird to add to their collections.

This didn’t quite work out, as we discover in The Last…

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