This week's episode of Destination Truth went after the moa, New Zealand's presumed extinct giant man-eating bird.  (They also did some ghost hunting on Easter Island, which was awesome, and entertaining, and really great, and you should definitely go watch the episode.)

Unlike a lot of other cryptozoological reports, I give total credence to stories about the moa.  For one thing, this is an animal that did, without question, exist.  Much like the passenger pigeon and the dodo, the moa was a known presence here on the Earth.  And much like the passenger pigeon and the dodo, people killed it off.  

The moa was a large flightless bird, something like a predatory ostrich.  There were ten species of moa living on New Zealand, ranging in size from about the height of a chicken, to the largest species which was a whopping twelve feet tall.

Although the moa looks quite a lot like other Australian and New Zealand flightless birds, such as the emu, the kiwi, and the cassowary, it turns out that it was not related to any of them.  According to Wikipedia, the moa's closest relative was a South American bird called the tinamous (which, aside from its wonderful name, is able to fly).

Until the 1300s, the moa's only predator was the Haast's Eagle, which could strike at a speed of up to 50MPH, and was about half again as large as any other eagle currently on the planet.  The Haast's Eagle was big enough to qualify for Roc status, with a wingspan of about 38 feet across.

Sadly for the moa, it was also quite tasty.  The Maori people arrived on New Zealand in the 1300s, and made quick work of the moa.  By the 1400s, the moa were considered extinct.  Along with the Haast's Eagle, which had lost its main source of food.

Moa sightings have occurred fairly regularly in the remotest parts of New Zealand, and from a variety of sources.  Seamen have reported seeing large emu-like birds from the water, and hunters have reported spotting a giant walking bird periodically in the forest.  Most recently in 2007 a hiker spotted a giant brown bird, and managed to snap a suspiciously blurry and vague picture of something suspiciously vaguely bird-shaped.

Could a surviving population of gigantic birds be hiding in New Zealand?  It is one of the world's least populated countries, with an average of only 39 people per square mile. (By way of comparison, the US has 84 people per square mile - and that includes Alaska!)  However, as remote as many parts of New Zealand are, they are also incredibly popular with hikers, campers, anglers, and hunters.  

Several possibilities have been raised, including the misidentification of red deer.  And certainly looking at the most recent moa picture, I can see how it could just be a bad picture of a deer.  It could also be a picture of a chicken at close range, or a picture of a rogue emu.

Although Loren Coleman reports that New Zealand was able to account for the whereabouts of all captive emu on the island, an escaped and unaccounted-for emu seems more likely than the persistence of a gigantic prehistoric bird.  But one never knows, do one?

Creative Commons-licensed image courtesy of Flickr user Nemo's great uncle