SIGHTINGS TIMELINE

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1839 A New Zealand bone fragment is finally identified by legendary palaeontologist Sir Richard Owen as belonging to a previously unknown species of ‘gargantuan bird ’and science recognises a creature it previously believed to be Maori myth.

1850 Rev Richard Taylor recounts a tale passed to him by sealer Edward Meurant, of witnessing Maori feasting on a moa in Waikawa Harbour, 27 years earlier.

1863 Three travellers crossing the Haast Pass to Fiordland claim to have a night encounter with a three-metre-tall bird at their campsite.

1880 Seven-year-old Alice McKenzie records her first meeting with a moa near a Fiordland beach. Some doubt is cast on both encounters when she insists that the bird had blue plummage.

1948 The takahe is rediscovered in the Murchison Range, giving credible hope for the continued survival of the moa.

1963 An unidentified metre-high bird is seen in heavy bush northwest of Nelson.

1973 Superman does battle with ‘The Last Moa on Earth’ in issue 425 of Action Comics. 1993 Hotelier Paddy Freaney’s blurred photograph of a supposed moa he pursued, also in the Harper Valley of the Craigieburn Range, causes international controversy. Computer analysis suggests that the image genuinely shows a very large bird.

1994 A Dunedin doctor claims to have identified browsing damage hypothetically consistent with a moa in the same area of the Craigieburn Forest Park as Freaney’s sighting.

1998 An Otago University project to clone moas using DNA material recovered from the extinct bird’s eggshell is halted when Ngai Tahu claim ownership of the genetic material.