CARE FOR SOME MOA?

Summoning the moa spirits

If you’ve read any of these blog entries, you may remember that our kids were here over Christmas along with Abby’s partner, Paddy and his younger brother Matt. All of them tend toward the unconventional, so this particular day they were off on a hike at the top of the infamous “Takaka Hill,” a high ridge that divides GoldenBay from the rest of New Zealand. So in their not-so-conventional way, they took off cross-country on a basic adventure-exploration.

Most of the north end of the South Island is made up of limestone, and as such is pretty much honeycombed with caves, pits and labyrinths caused by water seeping, dissolving and re-forming in various ways. One common formation is called a sinkhole, which is just a vertical hole that can be anywhere from a few feet to over a 1000 feet deep. Often, caves open from, or lead to sinkholes.

Best way in and out of a sinkhole. Note special climbing footwear.

In their little hike, the group had been traipsing over a landscape that’s hard to describe. It’s basic limestone but has been eroded to create an incredibly rough, yet generally horizontal, surface where the highs and lows can vary a few feet over a very short distance. Definitely not ADA compliant. The highs are knife-edged shoe shredders and the lows are ankle breaking, foot wedgers so it was slow going, but they did happen on a few sinkholes. And, as with any troop of monkeys, they had to get down into them if possible. Since they hadn’t brought their climbing equipment, it was done without a net so to speak.

Apparently animals are curious (or clumsy or maybe stupid) because the main thing the similarly curious troop discovered was that all the bottoms of the sinkholes were littered with bones. It seems as though the local livestock and a few wild (introduced) mammals have been falling into these holes for years with little hope for escape seeing as how they are short on opposing thumbs. So after collecting a skull or two, and about the time the troop was about to head back to the road, they found another sinkhole that was narrow enough to get down without ropes so, of course, in they went.

Actual sinkhole where this particular moa had been lurking for a few hundred years

They tell me that once you’re in a sinkhole, you look for caves opening off the sides, so that was just what Ian was doing when he spotted a long bone, unlike what they’d found in the other holes. So without tools except fingernails, they commenced to dig through the mud at the bottom and came up with a good sack-full of bones. With Abby and Paddy having recently suffered through intensive anatomy courses, they realized that there was something unusual with the bones. There were three knobs (not a medical term) on the end of what were obviously leg bones as opposed to the two present on pretty much all mammals. And certain bones had a distinct yellowish color. So the crew packed up what they could find with the tools they had or in their case, didn’t have, and headed home.

A moa skeleton in a Christchurch museum; standard size in from, giant in rear

As with anyone of his generation, Ian headed straight for the computer. They had a hunch it could be a moa, but needed to know a little more, and who knows more than the internet? Indeed, this was a moa, or at least a boxful of moa bones, but not the whole bird.

Another view of a regular sized moa...about 6 1/2 feet tall

If you don’t know, a moa is an extinct, flightless bird related to the ostrich, emu, cassowary and even the kiwi. There was a giant version that stood about 12 feet with neck extended up, but the “standard” version is more like six and a half feet tall. Moas have been considered extinct for 400 to 800 hundred years, depending on who you believe, and were endemic to New Zealand. What our group found was a standard version…its legs were over 3 feet long.

Bones found on the 1st trip. A few more have been added, since.

So, not knowing if the find should be reported or if so, to whom, Ian made some calls and wrote some emails to various ministries…not preachers, but NZ governmental departments. He ended up with a letter from The Ministry of Culture and Heritage that would have allowed him to take the bones back to Alaska if he so chose, which he didn’t. Instead, he dumped them on his old man, hoping he’d go back up the hill and find the rest of the skeleton.

A month or so later, I, the old man in question, with a couple trusty helpers and the aid of a hand drawn treasure map, a climbing rope and miscellaneous gear, found the right hole and some more bones. The most exciting thing was finding most the claws, but much of the spine, some toes, most the ribs and the skull are still out there somewhere. Someday, I’ll have another go.