Where have all the moas gone?

Press, 27 November 1982, Page 16

Where have all the moas gone?

No Moa. By Beverley McCulloch. Canterbury Museum, 1982. 31 pp. ' Illustrations. $4 (paperback).

With the help of a grant from the Royal Society of New Zealand, the Canterbury Museum has begun publishing a series of popular booklets on museum topics. The first in the series has the subtitle, “Some thoughts on the life and death of New Zealand’s most spectacular bird.” It takes its title from the refrain of an old New Zealand song, “No Moa,” by W.

Chamberlain: “No moa, in old Ao-tea-roa Beverley McCulloch, a volunteer worker at the museum, has set a high standard for the series. She has carried out a good deal of work on radio-carbon dating of moa bones and remains, and has published scientific articles. This booklet is an easily read distillation of the state of knowledge about the moa. Her theme is the mystery of how the moa became extinct and she reaches the sad conclusion that moas had survived successfully in these islands for about 70 million years before the last of them died, or were killed, about 500 years ago. She concludes that the moas were hunted and eaten, their eggs were used by the Maoris, and long before European settlers arrived man had burned over large tracts of country where the moas lived, including much of the east coast of the South Island. “We are reluctant to abandon the image of the Noble Savage, living in harmony with his environment,” she writes. But the conclusion seems inescapable that men made the moa extinct, as they have destroyed other species in New Zealand, before and since. At its modest-price, “No Moa” is a worthwhile booklet for anyone interested in a great and sad curiosity of New Zealand natural history. — Naylor Hillary.