The big bird
The grim spectre of anatomist Richard Owen is at the centre of the sensational story of New Zealand’s moa, writes Graeme Hill.
I AM instantly suspicious of writing that begins with I. I hope you are, too. Nonetheless, I copped a bit of an uppercut for my less than glowing appraisal of the central figure behind Bullers Birds, the shoot and stuff it ornithologist Walter Buller, but it has not changed my opinion of him as a venal Victorian social climber one bit. Now I must defame the dead again but this time I don’t expect many swings in defence of the central villain within this book . . . a nasty piece of work, the near-stereotypically dastardly Richard Owen. Take a look at him on this page and imagine a thunderclap.
Moa is so much more than a descriptive natural history. Alan Tennyson has done that beautifully already. The bird is the subject, of course, but also the pivot around which careers depend, feuds emerge and mania presents in the mid-1800s, exactly the time when dinosaurs were first discovered and described, but equally the moa was an international sensation. This was a time of enormous upheaval in the understanding of biology.
Every discovery seemed to be a whopper – and the lengths people went to, and the depths that renowned anatomist Richard Owen descended in order to capture all available kudos and prestige – are quite shocking. Can a feud be one-sided? Poor pathetic Gideon Mantell (father of the great New Zealand explorer and amateur biologist Walter) spent a life in severe pain, obsessively searching for dinosaur and moa evidence while being continually slapped about by arch-naturalist Richard Owen, like a cat does with a mouse, seemingly because it can.
If Mantell had known that in his whole life he would barely take a trick against Owen, that he would be maliciously undermined at every turn, he may well have picked another sport. Outrageously, Owen claimed the first dinosaur discovery, an iguanodon tooth (held at Te Papa) as his own, knowing it was not.
After Mantell’s death from an overdose of painkillers, it gets really bizarre and this is a cracking story. His constant pain was caused by a carriage accident. Doctors said he had a tumour in his lower back. They could feel the lumps. Gideon donated his spine to the Museum of Natural History, where Owen was The Boss. He knew Owen would have to hold it and put it in a jar. Mantell’s bottom five vertebrae were found to be twisted at 90 degrees, the bone ‘‘wings’’ protruding into his organs and out his back. The pain must have been incredible. In a final gruesome twist, Gideon Mantell became Richard Owen’s exhibit #4808.
Moa is riddled with tremendous stories like this, but the cherry on top is that Quinn Berentson can write. Try this for a mouthwatering introduction to the story of the very first European to attempt a traverse of Central Otago. ‘‘[He] was almost crushed by Central Otago – it broke 23-year-old Nathaniel Chalmers, despite his rugged pioneer credentials, and defeated him so utterly that he fled back to the coast an incontinent, half-dead wreck, destined never to undertake a serious voyage again in his life. And that only took three weeks.’’
There are enduring mysteries and questions surrounding our sadly extinct megabird, and Moa addresses the lot. Did they walk tall or stoop? Who cares? When did the last one die? Some bones discovered in the 19th century had skin, fat and feathers, so it is not surprising people thought some may still be walking. The most credible report of a live moa ‘‘sighting’’ is from some surveyors in Takaka in the late 1800s, but it is just footprints and we only have their word for it. Maybe some did hang on in the vast, as it was, unexplored wilderness, but there is no credible evidence.
More remarkable than any late survival was their rapid disappearance. We had at least nine species and they were everywhere.
Walter Mantell used moa fat for a fry-up and commented ‘‘it was delicious’’. Indeed. How delicious? Apparently worthy of slaughter on an industrial scale and the evidence is incontrovertible. We know that at the mouth of the Waitaki alone there are 120 hectares of earth ovens with nothing but moa bones in them. The estimated total 100,000, but the author concedes it may be closer to a quarter of a million.
Another testimony to their rapid disappearance is lack of testimony. Maori oral history of moa is scant and ambiguous. Berentson puts it beautifully. ‘‘Seemingly in the blink of an eye the moa disappeared, erased from history so quickly and thoroughly that even the memory of them died, and today most New Zealanders scarcely spare them a thought.’’
The most engaging effect of this book is how it compels the mind’s eye to a time when we were riddled with these magnificent creatures (and others).
One imagines herds of them lumbering on hillsides and what they may have sounded like. Well, Te Papa has had a lash at recreating a giant moa call. It’s a guess but it is a guess of some scholarship. The trick would be to play it to some surviving native animals that may have an interest in keeping out of moa reach and see what happens. I’ve done it with some geckos. Nothing.
You can download it from the front page of the Weekend Variety Wireless website. We can also see the shadow of moa today in the numerous twiggy plants we have, many changing to leafy only when they reach beyond moa grasp.
The grim spectre of Richard Owen is a recurring motif through much of Moa. He got his comeuppance, being removed from the Royal Society for plagiarism and by backing the wrong horse in the evolution debate, but is he judged too harshly?
He was a brilliant anatomist. He practically invented the museum, but how telling is this quote from the mild and conflict averse Charles Darwin? ‘‘I used to be ashamed of hating him so much, but now I will carefully cherish my hatred and contempt to the last days of my life’’. Oh dear.