The great auk could return to British shores for the first time in almost 200 years after geneticists hatched a plan to bring the extinct bird back from the dead.

An international team of scientists has met to discuss reintroducing the flightless marine birds onto the Farne islands off the north-east coast of England.

Until the species’ final extinction in the middle of the 19th century, great auks ranged across the Atlantic from Northern Europe to Iceland, Canada and the eastern United States.