Errol Fuller

"In 1844, (once captain of the ', now Governor of New Zealand) interviewed an ancient named Haumatangi who claimed to have seen, when only a boy, and — 2 years earlier than this — the trapping of a . Another aged Maori, Kawane Paipai, recalled taking part in moa hunts on the plains of during the final years of the eighteenth century."

"Anyone looking quickly at a stuffed might think it was a , and this is hardly surprising. Except for its enormous beak, an auk looks very much like a penguin. Penguins are largely black and white. So are auks. When out of the water, penguins tend to stand upright, with their short legs mostly hidden by feathers and body. Great auks stood in much the same way. Neither penguins nor great auks have wings that are capable of flight. Instead, they both became perfectly adapted to life in the sea, where, over eons, they developed extraordinary diving and swimming abilities. Each became so adept at living in watery conditions that their lives were given up almost exclusively to water. The life of a penguin is probably quite similar to the life great auks used to lead. But although there are so many similarities, there is no close relationship between these birds. The similarities are superficial, and they are examples of what is known as ".""

"More words have been written about the dodo than about any other extinct bird. Yet the truth is that almost nothing is known of this strange creature. The bird lived only on the small, isolated island of Mauritius, way out in the , and the first notice of it comes in a book published in 1599. Around 60 years later the species was extinct. What survives from this brief period of interaction with human beings is very little. There are some 15 written accounts (most of which are disappointingly lacking in informative content), a similar number of paintings (some of which contradict others), a large pile of bones, and a stuffed head and foot."

"Sometimes the of a species can be traced back to a single cause. More often there are a number of contributory factors. But the case of the has everything: murder, habitat destruction, political interference, the introduction of an alien species, dilution of the bloodstock by hybridisation, the effects of tourism, pollution, civil war, and an earthquake. Perhaps just as extraordinary as any of these things is the fact that the final years of its destruction were chronicled in the most intense detail by a fanatically dedicated woman named (1935–2011). In numerous magazine articles and papers in learned journals she recounted the story of her attempts to save the birds from disaster, and pleaded for help with her efforts. Finally, when all was lost, she wrote a highly personal book. Called Mama Poc (poc being the sound the birds made) and published in 1990, it is a thorough record of her forlorn struggle to save the species."

"The story of the reads like a work of fiction. At the start of the nineteenth century these birds existed in unimaginable numbers — billions upon billions. The species may have made up as much as 40 percent of the bird population of North America. It may even have been the most numerous bird species on the planet. The flocks were so large and dense they blackened the skies, blotted out the sun. But by the century's end it was over; the birds were gone from the wild. By the year 1914 just a single individual (out of all the countless millions) was left. She was called and she lived alone in a cage at the . In September this last representative of her species died, and as a living entity the Passenger Pigeon was no more. Along with the , the , and the , the species had become one of the great icons of ."