FOXSYLVANIA

– – The second half of a 2010 Destination Truth episode focused on the Giant Moa, an extinct flightless bird native to New Zealand that was  hunted to extinction in the 1500’s.  There were twelve species of moa, the largest of which stood up to twelve feet tall!   Now this big bird wasn’t “Big Bird” but could easily kill the Sesame Street specimen; the giant moa had colorful feathers and three-toed taloned feet with which it could conceivably disembowel hunters.  Eyewitness sightings of giant moa have occurred in remote locations of New Zealand, however, despite their presumed extinction, giving grounds for a Destination Truth investigation.

Josh Gates and his team rummaged around after dark in those remote locations, setting up camera traps and hunting about for evidence of these giant avians.  The  cameras yielded nothing save blurry images, and investigation found bones, a feather, and footprints.  The bones turned out to be mammalian, the feather was from a rare bird but not a moa, and the footprint castings could not be identified.

So once again, an extinct species must be presumed to be extinct, since as it was commented it’s hard to keep a twelve foot bird off the radar!   How sad, however, that the human race with their boom sticks eradicated this species…