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Maori Legend of Man-Eating Birds is True
jerryatrix writes "Legends of the New Zealand Maori tell of giant man-eating birds. New scientific evidence proves that these birds did exist and were around the same time as humans in New Zealand. From the article, 'Scientists now think the stories handed down by word of mouth and depicted in rock drawings refer to Haast's eagle, a raptor that became extinct just 500 years ago.'"
So it wasn't the dingo, after all.
No dingos in NZ.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I lived in New Zealand for awhile and it's shocking the number of flightless birds that died out. The final death blow to some species was the introduction of rats. They ate the eggs of birds and wiped out many species of Weta Bugs. New Zealand missed out on the mega Fauna extinction their's happened in the last 2,000 years instead of 10,000 to 15,000 years ago. Modern science just missed out on a lot of species. Hard to believe how different the world was 20,000 years ago, 500 years ago was nothing. It was only a few lifetimes before Europeans set foot in New Zealand.
New Zealand has two military intelligence bases, Waihopi and the other I forget the name of, both of which are apart of the ECHELON Network. New Zealand 'Peace Keepers' are situated in Timor Leste, were involved in Bougainvillea (both small Pacific islands) and are in various other Pacific nations right now. New Zealand followed ' lead into South Africa in the Boer Wars, even conquered German Samoa at the start of World War One (we literally had a Prime Minister with an Imperialist vision for New Zealand at one point), went to Africa and and Europe during WWI (the famous words about Britain 'Where she goes, we go') and by a quirk of our time zones, New Zealand was the first to declare war on Germany. We fought in Europe again during WWII, and we protected the Pacific from the Japanese threat. In the fifties, we sent the K-Force into Korea, and troops got involved in the Malay Conflict (as 'military advisor's' of course). I have a second-cousin once removed that was killed fighting in Vietnam in the NZ Contingent, though our force over there was a token. And up until 2006 the S.A.S. were in Afghanistan, and rumoured to have done over the border trips into Iraq. They've just been given the go ahead for redeployment.
In short, do your research man.
There's an amazing video of the native bat running, because it'd evolved to be flightless like the birds.
Video
Shame on you for talking up something so cool and not providing a link.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
You totally forgot New Zealand's only native land mammal, the bat. There's an amazing video of the native bat running, because it'd evolved to be flightless like the birds.
The native bat is not flightless. It does a funny scamper thing along the ground but this does not make it flightless.
But, the Haast Eagle was unconfirmed before this? I've been brought up and it's always been a fact to me.
Haasts Eagle bones were identified in 1870 by Julius Von Haast. This thing preyed on the Moa, a 12-foot tall 500lb flightless bird. There is no question that a human would have been a much easier much more defenseless snack than a Moa. It would be unlikely that they didn't eat the occasional human.
When the first polynesian settlers showed up they would have climbed out of their Waka http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/waka-canoes and on to the lunch menu.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
*cough cough*
The buffalo wasn't finished off because the white invaders ate them up. The Army wanted the herds destroyed, with the goal of depriving natives of food. Around the same time, the railroads promoted trophy hunting, because the herds were a threat to the trains.
The near extinction of the buffalo would be less shameful if they had been hunted for food. Millions of buffalo were slaughtered, just to rot in the sun.
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