MOA MOA THE LIFE AND DEATH OF NEW ZEALAND’S LEGENDARY BIRD QUINN BERENTSON ‘In those days of which geologists tell us, the principal parts were played, not by kings and queens, but by creatures many of which were very unlike those we see around us now. And yet it is no fairyland after all, where impossible things happen, and where impossible dragons figure largely; but only the same old world in which you and I were born. Everything you will see here is quite true. All these monsters once lived. Truth is stranger than fiction; and perhaps we shall enjoy our visit to this fairyland all the more for that reason.’ Reverend H. N. Hutchinson, ‘Extinct Monsters’, 1910 Mummified head of an upland moa, Megalapteryx didinus. First published in 2012 by Craig Potton Publishing Craig Potton Publishing Mummified moa remains found in the Central Otago goldfields. Photograph by the Burton 98 Vickerman Street, PO Box 555, Nelson, New Zealand Brothers of Dunedin, 1870s. www.craigpotton.co.nz © Quinn Berentson Edited by Caroline Budge Designed by Robbie Burton ISBN 978 1 877517 84 6 Printed in China by Midas Printing International Ltd This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without the permission of the publishers. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 10 PART ONE – QUARRELSOME BONES i. Richard Owen sees a Movie. 16 ii. Terra Incognita. 30 iii. The Ballad of Gideon Mantell. 42 iv. A Strange and Terrible Giant Emerges. 56 v. Under the Mountain. 72 vi. Tommy Chasland’s Remarkable Feet. 86 vii. Tragic and Surprising Endings. 102 PART TWO – REVELATIONS viii. The Human Tsunami. 118 ix. Haast Hits the Jackpot. 134 x. The Transactions Dispute. 152 xi. Century of the Moa. 168 xii. Flogging a Dead Horse. 186 xiii. Ghosts in the Bush. 200 xiv. Big Birds. 216 xv. Serial Overkill. 234 xvi. The Last Moa. 252 CONCLUSION 272 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 276 REFERENCES 277 IMAGE CREDITS 288 INDEX 293 arrival of a lethal new animal to the land – a cunning bipedal and highly social primate with the extinction capacity of a fair-sized asteroid. Along with the hu- mans came their entourage of four-legged predators, who wreaked havoc among wildlife that had never encountered their like and had no natural defences against the mammalian invasion. Seemingly in the blink of an eye the moa disappeared, erased from his- tory so quickly and thoroughly that even the memory introduction of them died and today most New Zealanders scarcely spare them a thought. They have become creatures of ‘I suddenly became aware that, although I was a native of New Zealand and had lived here myth and urban legend; ghosts in the bush and an all my life, I had only the most hazy notions of the Moa, and when it came down to funda- enigma broken into thousands of pieces and scattered mentals I really knew nothing of it at all.’ across New Zealand’s spectacular landscape. T. Lindsay Buick, ‘Discovery of Dinornis’, 1936 What is the real story of the moa? Why is everything about their existence so myste- rious and controversial? First we killed them, then we ate them and then we thrived for millions of years, adapting and diversify- What were the enormous birds really like, and forgot about them. Human beings have not been kind ing to fill virtually every terrestrial environment in the what happened to them? to the moa. rugged isles of New Zealand, from sand dunes to flax In 2009 I set out to capture this phantom in Here was the most unusual and unique family of swamps; deep primeval rainforest to frozen subalpine my own mind, or at least follow its trail around my birds that ever lived, a clan of feathered monsters that tussock. Some were the size of a turkey, while the larg- home country and attempt to make my own sense of were isolated on the small islands of New Zealand, and est of the group, the giant moa, became the tallest bird its mysteries. Like most ‘Kiwis’ I identify myself with left to the wildest whims of evolution became so large to have ever lived on this planet. Some had legs built the moa’s small and humble cousin which has become and odd and different from the rest of the avian group like an elephant’s, others laid eggs the size of rugby our national symbol, while only occasionally sparing a that they became almost as much mammal as bird. balls. New Zealand was the ‘Land of the Moa’ for the thought for New Zealand’s truly iconic native bird. My With little competition and no ground predators moa longest time, and their rule was undisputed until the scant knowledge of the moa began and ended with a Model moa near Awamoa, Otago 2011. few words: big flightless bird; extinct; stalked in some ancient age by the Moa Hunters, a mysterious race The flightless giants remain New Zealand’s most who may or may not have been Maori. Like everyone famous contribution to natural history and when Eu- else, I don’t even say its name properly – it should be ropean science discovered the birds in the 1840s they pronounced to rhyme with ‘more’ rather than ‘mower’. were described as ‘the zoological find of the century’. Once I began to dig deeper into the wealth of The moa made the front page of major newspapers written material and speculation that the moa has in- and their bones were a star exhibit in every natural spired over the last century and a half, and travel to the history museum and collection worth a visit. British locations where their remains have been uncovered, I royalty keenly awaited the latest news of these ‘feath- soon realised that there is far more to the story of the ered monsters’ and each twist in their revelation was moa than I had ever imagined. It covers not just the broadcast to the far corners of the British Empire and strange attributes of the flightless giants themselves (of commented on by literary luminaries such as Charles which there are many) but also the unlikely series of Dickens and Mark Twain. events and people that were involved in turning the The moa became so famous and their remains moa from a monster of ancient legend to an interna- so valuable that baser human nature took over and Author T. Lindsay Buick contemplates the tional sensation in the late nineteenth century, and in highly personal and nasty in-fighting soon broke out remains of an ancient feast of moa at the the twenty-first century to the most well-documented between those who competed to study them. Scien- mouth of the Waitaki River, 1937. and understood extinct animal group of all. tific careers were built and lost over the moa – while 10 11 NEW ZEALAND Mayor Island Key Locations • East Cape • • Waiapu River • Photographic montage, made circa Hikurangi 1936, depicting a moa, and an • Tolaga Bay unidentified Maori man holding a New Plymouth taiaha (Maori fighting staff). A note • • Gisborne Mt Taranaki on the back of the print reads “The • • Lake Taupo Maori and the moa. A museum Waingongoro River • •• Central Plateau reconstruction of a scene which Ohawe Beach probably was not very uncommon in New Zealand a long time ago.” some became international celebrities and accu- This book is my attempt to revive some awareness Aorere Goldfields • mulated wealth and titles by the dozen, others suc- of what we have lost, follow the twisted and dramatic cumbed to treachery and despair and lost their lives story of the moa’s discovery by science and summa- Honeycomb Hill • • Wellington while pursuing the moa’s intrigue. Even the identity rise what we have managed to learn about them since. Mt Owen • • of the first European to ‘discover’ the moa is contro- This is nowhere near as straightforward as you may Wairau Bar versial, with at least three different contenders for think, since it seems almost every aspect of the great the claim. birds’ biology, evolutionary origins and final extinc- • Kaikoura tion has been argued over, rewritten and turned on its Pyramid Valley head over the last 170 years. Even in the twenty-first Okarito • S • Glenmark/Bell Hill century, the moa continues to amaze as a new genera- Aoraki/Mt Cook • • Craigieburn Range In its way, the moa shaped the early formative his- tion of technology allows modern researchers to delve • Christchurch Haast Pass • • tory of New Zealand and became a potent symbol in deeper into their unique biology and life history and • Moa Bone Point oral tradition, mythology, pop culture, jokes, art and finally uncover the truth about the world’s most leg- Martins Bay • Rakaia River Mouth poetry. The moa even came to symbolise that most endary flightless bird. Maniototo Plain • revered bunch of New Zealanders, the All Blacks. A Tiger Hill • Kapua Swamp moa was featured in official coats of arms (it is still in Cromwell Gorge • Waitaki River Mouth • • • • • Awamoa Wellington’s) and was the centre of any New Zealand Takahe Valley • • • • Shag River Mouth display at the great International Expositions of the • Nevis Valley Waikouaiti nineteenth century. • • For a long time, the moa defined New Zealand, Dusky Sound Dunedin and New Zealand was defined by their presence, until somehow the giant birds fell down some kind • Papatowai of collective memory hole and we mostly forgot all Earnscleugh Cave Moa Creek about them. 12 13 Chapter four A strange and terrible giant emerges ‘Of all the monsters that ever lived on the face of the earth, the giant birds were perhaps the most grotesque.’ Reverend H.