Who killed the last Great Auk and when did it happen?

Flem-ish

Well, it seems it happened on June 3,1844 and I wonder how one can know so precisely.It's also the subject of a book. Aug 05 08, 3:30 PM

zbeckabee

The last two were taken at Eldey on 4 June 1844 when three Icelandic sailors, Sigurður Ísleifsson, Ketill Ketilsson and Jón Brandsson, were asked to collect a few specimens for the Danish natural history collector, Carl Siemsen. Jón Brandsson and Sigurður Ísleifsson were each quick to find and kill a bird but Ketill returned empty handed, as the two birds killed were the last ones, and that was the end of the story for this penguin of the North. http://www.visindavefur.hi.is/svar.asp?id=5489 The last population lived on Geirfuglasker ("Great Auk Rock") off Iceland. This island was a volcanic rock surrounded by cliffs which made it inaccessible to humans, but in 1830 the rock submerged, and the birds moved to the nearby island Eldey which was accessible from a single side. The last pair, found incubating an egg, were killed there on 3 July 1844, with Jón Brandsson and Sigurður Ísleifsson strangling the adults and Ketill Ketilsson smashing the egg with his boot.[ However, a later claim of a live individual sighted in 1852 on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland has been accepted by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_auk Aug 05 08, 4:30 PM

Flem-ish

There is also a story about the last Great AUk in the British Isles. Killed in July 1840 by two residents of St. Kilda. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Auk Great Auk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Aug 07 08, 4:06 AM