Grey whale

Could we bring back the Great Auk?

From our UK edition

In 2023, the State of Nature Report announced that Britain was one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries. This can have been scarcely surprising to anyone conscious of the ever-emptier countryside, and perhaps even expected for a small island that gave birth to the Industrial Revolution. But Lee Raye’s many sources reveal that the process has long predated the steam engine, with far-reaching effects not just on the natural world but on national psychology. The 14 species featured in this book once bulked large in the British consciousness – as living beings and also as metaphors, morals, similes and symbols.