The Curse Of The Labrador Duck: My Obsessive Quest to the Edge of Extinction

By Glen Chilton

Little is known about the Labrador Duck, which once populated eastern North America but has been extinct for more than a hundred years. Stuffed specimens are rare—only fifty-four are thought to exist. Even rarer is the kind of scientist who would travel around the globe more than three times in search of every last stuffed bird. And what about the curse? Everyone who has owned a particular specimen has come to a bad end.

Over the course of his epic journey, Chilton encountered a colourful flock of scientists, journalists and amateur ornithologists, not to mention a Scottish egg thief. His pursuit of the extinct species took him from the duck’s breeding habitat in Labrador to Europe and America as he searched museums and personal collections. He also endured numerous hangovers and narrowly avoided arrest in New York City, all leading up to his final pursuit of the last duck and his own part in the species’ many-feathered legacy.

The Curse of the Labrador Duck is a quest unlike any other, an impulsive journey around the planet in pursuit of a bird no one in our lifetime has seen alive or ever will again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Apr 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781443403948

Glen Chilton

DR. GLEN CHILTON, professor emeritus at St. Mary’s University College, Calgary, and adjunct professor at James Cook University, Townsville, Australia, is an internationally recognized

Reviews for The Curse Of The Labrador Duck

[benjaminhahn · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A strange little book about seeing every stuffed Labrador Duck in the world. At times, very funny, although the author seemed a little too focused on sex. I guess there are only so many ways to spice up a book about extinct ducks. Still, I'm glad I read it, especially for the interesting travel observations and the laugh out loud insights.

[drmaf-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Simply a book that has to be read to be believed. Part hilarious travelogue, part lamentation on the finality of extinction, part scientific detective story. In a nutshell, the story concerns the Labrador Duck, a not too common species that has the dubious distinction of being the first known bird in North America to become extinct due to human action. It was shot in its hundreds ( even though people knew it tasted horrible) and its wintering grounds on the north-eastern US coast were consumed by the human sprawl. So it quietly slipped into eternity in the 1870s without anyone ever knowing much about it all. Fast forward 140 years or so and a Canadian ornithologist rediscovers a childhood fascination with the Labrador Duck and conceives the quixotic notion of finding and describing every one of the known 55 remaining stuffed Labrador Ducks. So begins his adventures as a clueless traveller, speaking no language other than English, and accompanied by a variety of companions, including his wife, his mother, and a series of young, attractive women, one of whom he pretends is his wife to fool puritanical hotel-owners who take a dim view of unmarried couples sharing the same room., and another who inveigles him into going skinny-dipping at night in a freezing glacial stream. He travels to the UK, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, the Czech Republic, Russia, the US and back home to Canada, allowing himself to play the clueless traveller to the hilt, dealing with a variety of officialdom, friendly, indifferent and downright hostile, as he hunts down, one by one, the last earthly remains of the ill-fated Labrador Duck. And in this, there is a touch of sadness among the humour. Every duck he finds is a testament to a species, one among many, that we will never see again, about whom so little is known that we have no clue where its nesting grounds were, what its eggs look liked, and even what colour its eyes were. And we we will never know these things, because this bird is gone forever. All that remains are a few pathetic, moulting, dusty taxidermic mounts to testify that it even existed. Nothing brings home the absolute immutable finality of extinction more than seeing a photo of one of these specimens, posed in a cleverly lifelike position, but knowing that we will never actually see one of them alive again. This a very funny book, but also extremely sad. It is, however, enthralling, engrossing and though-provoking, in addition to being hilarious. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

[adzebill · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a great book if you happen to be an ornithologist planning a trip through southern Germany and Austria to look at museum collections (like me); I recognised some of the places and people, and appreciated the useful reviews of different collections, and even the tourist tips for each place.If you're not a museum ornithologist, you might find the description of the condition and appearance of stuffed Labrador Ducks begins to lose its charm after about duck #30.Apart from that, the book is standard travel writing, as Chilton describes the cities and villages he treks through to accomplish his self-imposed mission of measuring every known Labrador Duck in museum collections. The style is a bit Bill Bryson-esque, but—and this is an important but—Bryson's jokes are almost always funny.The only weird thing about the book (apart from duck measuring, that's perfectly normal as far as I'm concerned) is Chilton seems obsessed with women, and contrives to travel with, skinny-dip with, or share a hotel room and even a bed with several women who are not his wife, while proclaiming his complete fidelity. Every few pages he's ogling or flirting with young women. It's a bit odd.