ANIMALS IN DANGER

Little Auks (Alle alle) Keith Henderson (1883-1982) [LANLM 1971 46 5]

This watercolour & pastel drawing shows a group of Little Auks standing on rocks. Little Auks are small seabirds, around 20cm long and weighing only 150g or so - about half the size of a puffin. They breed on islands in the High Arctic during the summer but can often be seen overwintering in the British Isles.

Sadly, the Little Auk’s larger relative, the Great Auk, did not fare so well. The bird was around 80cm long and weighed about 5kg. Its down feathers, large eggs and meat were highly sought after by sailors crossing the frozen north in the 1700s and 1800s. The Great Auk was hunted to extinction The last breeding pair on Great Auk Rock (off Iceland’s coast) were killed on 3 June 1844, their one egg smashed by a boot!

78 skins, approximately 75 eggs and 24 complete skeletons of the Great Auk remain in museum collections.