Sea of Slaughter by Farley Mowat Read Free Book Online Page B

produced a new explanation for its descent into extinction... and a new exculpation for mankind. According to Dr. Tuck, the great auk was already a relic species when Europeans discovered it off the shores of North America. Having run its evolutionary course it had reached, literally, a dead end. Its degeneration had proceeded so far, Tuck claimed, that as long ago as 3000 BC the only rookery still in existence in the New World was the one on Funk Island... and it was already in the final stages of natural decline when modern man arrived upon the scene. If nothing else, this is a truly elegant alibi, with the onus so effortlessly shifted from the culprits to the victims.
    Another Canadian point of view was expressed by a functionary in the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans. It throws light upon the current attitudes of that department toward the remaining seabirds in Canadian waters. “No matter how many there may have been, the Great Auk had to go. They must have consumed thousands of tons of marine life that commercial fish stocks depend on. There wasn’t room for them in any properly managed fishery. Personally, I think we ought to be grateful to the old timers for handling that problem for us.”
    This adherence to an outmoded theory justifying the destruction of “worthless” species for the presumed good of others, which we value commercially, was an attitude I encountered time and time again.
    The 3rd of June, 1844, dawned clear and windless, and the heavy swell that had been thundering against the coast for days had died away. Three fishermen of Stadur—Ketil Ketilsson, Jon Brandsson, and Sigurdur Islefsson—made their way down to the shore where their open boat lay beached, looked searchingly at sky and sea, exchanged a few laconic comments, and concluded that this might be a fit day to try for Eldey.
    The lack of wind was a mixed blessing for it meant they would have to row the heavy boat some fifteen miles offshore, but its absence offered some assurance that they would be able to land on Eldey’s steep cone when they eventually arrived. The calm weather held and, shortly before midday, they scrambled ashore on Eldey’s sea-worn lava cliffs under a haze of screaming murres and gulls. An account of what ensued was obtained from the fishermen by a fellow Icelander some years later.
    â€œAs they clambered up they saw two Geirfugel sitting among numberless other sea-birds, and at once gave chase. The Geirfugel showed not the slightest disposition to repel the invaders, but immediately ran along the high cliff, their heads erect, their little wings extended. They uttered no cry of alarm and moved, with their short steps, about as quickly as a man could walk. Jon, with outstretched arms, drove one into a corner, where he soon had it fast. Sigurdur and Ketil pursued the second and seized it close to the edge of the rock. Ketil then returned to the sloping shelf whence the birds had started and saw an egg lying on the lava slab, which he knew to be a Geirfugel’s. He took it up, but finding it was broken, dropped it again. All this took place in much less time than it took to tell.”
    A broken egg upon a barren rock. The period that marked the end.

2. Sea Fowle
    Mass destruction of seabirds was n ot, of course, limited to the spearbill. That unfortunate was simply a terminal example. Many other species suffered as severely, yet escaped annihilation because of their astronomical original numbers, widespread distribution, or their ability to breed in remote or otherwise inaccessible places. This chapter briefly recounts the histories of these oceanic birds under assault by modern man upon the northeastern approaches to North America.
    The use of seabirds for bait seems to have begun almost as soon as European fishermen began exploiting New World waters. By the late 1500s, according to Whitbourne:
    â€œThe sea fowles do not only feed those who trade [to Newfoundland] but