Frank Valoy- Chapter 3: The Original Penguin

              In chapter 3, Elizabeth Kolbert begins to talk about the voyage of Charles Darwin and Robert Fitz Roy. Along with developing the idea of Natural Selection, Darwin kept in mind geologist Charles Lyell’s claim that some areas of the earth were rising. He was able to find evidence to Lyell’s claim when he made a stop at St. Jago in the Cape Verde Islands where he saw “a ribbon of white limestone halfway up the dark cliffs” (Pg. 51). From that moment on, it was said that Darwin gained plenty of influence from Lyell.
             Later in the chapter, the great Auk is mentioned, which is a flightless bird like a penguin. The great Auk was highly populated on Funk Island in Newfoundland, but was highly exploited as bait and for their feathers by Europeans. As a result, the auk population decreased and they were declared “rare” until they eventually became extinct.
              Alfred Newton and John Wolley, who were British naturalists that were in search of auks, traveled to Iceland and when they traveled back to England, Newton saw that birds flying in Britain’s long coast were being hunted and a bird who was a parent was killed. Newton knew that the bird’s offsprings were going to die of hunger now that it was dead and he began to argue for a ban of hunting during breeding season. As a result, the Act for the Preservation of Birds was passed.
              It was concluded that the extinction of the great auk was an example of human-caused extinction. Based on this conclusion, it was mentioned that humans have a “special status” outside of nature (Pg. 69). (E) The way I interpreted this idea of humans having a “special status” outside of nature is that humans aren’t majorly affected by what they do to the environment. For instance, if a human goes hunting and shoots a deer that was a parent, the deer’s offsprings will have to either fend for themselves or eventually starve to death. As you can see, the human wasn’t negatively affected in this situation at all.
             Overall, chapter 3 connects to the theme “Technology and population growth have enabled humans to increase both the rate and scale of their impact on the Environment” because weaponry like guns allow humans to hunt animals for food. As the human population increases, it can be inferred that more animals will be hunted, affecting the biodiversity of the environment.