I was reading about the Great Auk, I had no idea that they had even existed. It was fascinating learning how they helped early Viking explorers and were a staple food source of most N. Atlantic peoples from both sides of the ocean.

It seems they were clumsy/slow birds on land and they were easily caught. They were prized for their down feathers and eggs and were hunted to extinction.

This is awful but it all makes sense, humans are stupid.

But why were they so cruel? In the wiki article about the birds there is this quote:

The great auk had disappeared from Funk Island by 1800. An account by Aaron Thomas of HMS Boston from 1794 described how the bird had been slaughtered systematically until then:

If you come for their Feathers you do not give yourself the trouble of killing them, but lay hold of one and pluck the best of the Feathers. You then turn the poor Penguin adrift, with his skin half naked and torn off, to perish at his leasure. This is not a very humane method but it is the common practize. While you abide on this island you are in the constant practize of horrid cruelties for you not only skin them Alive, but you burn them Alive also to cook their Bodies with. You take a kettle with you into which you put a Penguin or two, you kindle a fire under it, and this fire is absolutely made of the unfortunate Penguins themselves. Their bodys being oily soon produce a Flame; there is no wood on the island

It seems like the author is totally aware of how cruel and inhumane he is being, yet totally unperturbed.

The whole article is filled with scenes of unwarranted cruelty:

Museums, desiring the skins of the great auk for preservation and display, quickly began collecting birds from the colony. The last pair, found incubating an egg, was killed there on 3 June 1844, on request from a merchant who wanted specimens, with Jón Brandsson and Sigurður Ísleifsson strangling the adults and Ketill Ketilsson smashing the egg with his boot

Another one:

in July 1840, the last great auk seen in Britain was caught and killed. Three men from St. Kilda caught a single "garefowl", noticing its little wings and the large white spot on its head. They tied it up and kept it alive for three days, until a large storm arose. Believing that the bird was a witch and was causing the storm, they then killed it by beating it with a stick

Is there some reason that people were such dickholes to these birds? Or is this just another reminder of how stupid and cruel people are? Especially uneducated people from a long time ago...