Rex & Heather Gilroy 2008 New Zealand Moa Research

After 20 years of field researches, during our 2000 expedition on Friday 17th march our efforts were finally rewarded. We had begun a search in the Te Urewera National Park inland from Hawkes’ Bay on the eastern side of North Island. Finding an old disused track we followed this up a forest-covered mountainside. Below us, down a steep forest-covered slope was a gully. The track at this point was about 2m wide with a 1.5m bank above, beyond which lay more dense forest covering a lengthy terrace. It was here that we found the indistinct impressions of large bird footprints, which appeared to emerge from the gully, cross the track and scramble up the bank into the forest beyond. Climbing the bank I soon found further indistinct large, three-toed footprints in the forest floor.

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Rex Holding Moa Casts

Rex Gilroy with casts of a large [female] Giant Moa [Dinornis giganteus] and smaller male example from the Te Urewera site. Male Moas were smaller than the female birds. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2008

The following is a complete account of Rex and Heather Gilroy’s March/April 2008 North Island investigation for evidence of living Moa, principally the Small Scrub Moa, Anomalopteryx didyformis. We were, however, to make perhaps an even more startling discovery, adding a second Moa species to the list of living ‘extinct’ New Zealand ratites.

Another field expedition to New Zealand is planned, hopefully in 2009, during which sites in the South Island will also be investigated. The official scientific view is that the Moas, which were anywhere between 3-4 metres down to 90cm in height, have been extinct for at least the last 600 years.

Having tramped the rugged, often vast and inaccessible mountainous and coastal forestlands of these islands on frequent expeditions since 1980, we have never been able to accept this proposition.


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Illustration from “The Age of Monsters” by J. Augusta and Z. Burian; Paul Hamlyn London 1966.

On the below Link is a 17 min interview with Rex Gilroy. At the link scroll down till you see the below text. It is mainly on the Moa in New Zealand and the Gilroy's research. It uses Windows media player.. Feature Interview: Rex Gilroy Self-taught naturalist seeking proof that extinct animals like the Moa and Tasmanian Tiger are still around. (duration: 17′44″). http://www.radionz.co.nz/ > New Zealand Interview 2008

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Rex holding Scrub Moa Casts
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Did dinosaurs ever meet moa?

No. The oldest known moa specimen is only about 2.4 million years old, while dinosaurs became extinct around 65 million years ago. However, the ancestors of the eleven New Zealand moa species are thought to have lived from as early as 80 million years ago, so it is possible that they may have met a dinosaur!

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Rex holding Scrub Moa Casts
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Rex Gilroy holding the male and female footprint casts. Working from skeletal remains, scientists have estimated that the female
Little Bush Moa reached a height of about 1.3m, whereas the male was about 90cm in height. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2006.

Extinct or Alive?
Hoaxes vrs Real Sightings?
New Zealand Scrub Moa

Giant Moa [Dinornis giganteus]

As an open-minded field researcher, I prefer to look for the evidence rather than dismiss something out of hand because a textbook says it's extinct." I just say we've got to be prepared to keep an open mind and investigate the evidence. "You've got to be born for this sort of work,".

"It's difficult for me, because I've got to differentiate between hoax sightings and believable ones. A lot of people are frightened to go to the media," says Rex Gilroy. "They [the media] play it up as a joke but it may affect the life's work of some serious researcher.

"As far as I'm concerned, they're definitely out there." "I want people to question, to draw their own conclusions". I think you can do no more greater service to man than make him think." "If people think you're a little bit crazy, they leave you alone so you can do your work".

Dinornis giganteus is argued by New Zealand scientists to have become extinct due to Polynesian depredations around 600 years ago. Its remains occur in both the North and South Islands.

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Auckland War Memorial Auckland Moa Exhibition

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Heather Gilroy with a display of reconstructed Moas in Auckland War Memorial Museum. Eleven Species have been identified from sub-fossil remains in both North and South Islands

Photograph Rex Gilroy 2008

Bottom Left Photo
Set of Moa leg bones from the smallest to largest species dispalyed in Auckland War Memorial Museum. The largest bone in the foreground belongs to a full-grown Giant-Moa[Dinornis giganteus]

Photograph Rex Gilroy 2008

 

 

New Zealand Moa Expedtion 2008
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