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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.'"
Actually there is no evidence that there was ever any land animals whatsoever in NZ except for lizards, insects and spiders. Unless you count flightless birds.
The primary reason that they went extinct was due to a loss of food. The Maori hunted all of the moa species of bird (large and flightless) to extinction. Another prime example of natives living "in tune" with nature...
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.
But, the Haast Eagle was unconfirmed before this? I've been brought up and it's always been a fact to me.
I think, from what I've read somewhere, that another reason the Maoris didn't come off as badly as some of the other indigenous people the British came across is that they were excellent fighters. Since they did spend most of their spare time fighting each other they had had a lot of practice when it came to fighting the British.
Despite the fact the colonists had naval guns and firearms the Maoris were able to devise tactics which completely negated the advantage they would have otherwise provided and dealt out a couple of fairly comprehensive beatings to the colonists so much so that during WWI the British actually recruited Maori elders to advise them how to conduct effective trench warfare.