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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Natural Histories

Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

Nature that has had a profound impact on human culture and society across history.

Nature that has got under our skin and profoundly impacted human culture and society across our history.

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Natural Histories: Great Auk

Great Auk

BBC Radio 4 - Natural Histories, Great Auk

Brett Westwood traces the story of the great auk, driven to extinction in 1844. From 2016

Golden eggs, witches and life after death all feature in this extraordinary story of the great auk, a flightless bird that was hunted to extinction in 1844. From 2016

In 1844, three men landed on the island of Eldey off the coast of Iceland and crept up on a pair of Great Auks which had an egg in a nest and killed the birds and trampled on the egg. These are believed to have been the last Great Auks which ever lived. Being flightless birds the men had little trouble catching and killing them. As one of the hunters recalled “I took him by the neck and he flapped his wings, he made no cry, I strangled him.”

The irony is that once they became extinct, Great Auks became even more sought after; this time by collectors of their skins and eggs. Today there are thought to be 75 specimens in museums or private collections. In this programme, Brett Westwood visits the Great North Museum to see two of these; an adult and a juvenile, before meeting writer and painter Errol Fuller; the proud owner of a Great Auk egg; a beautiful but tragic reminder of what once was. But that isn’t the end of the story as Brett discovers because a group of scientists are hoping to bring the birds back from extinction in a process called De-extinction. 

First broadcast in a longer form 16th August 2016
Original Producer: Sarah Blunt

Archive Producer for BBC Audio in Bristol : Andrew Dawes

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