[Original headline: New Zealander tracks down his country's version of Bigfoot 13/July/2001]
A biologist says DNA evidence confirms the existence of moose in New Zealand
A New Zealand biologist says he has found evidence confirming the existence of a near-mythical animal on a South Pacific island: the moose.
New Zealand is better known for its flightless national bird, the kiwi, than the antlered herbivores of northern Canada and Alaska. Still, Ken Tustin has spent 30 years hunting the elusive moose in an isolated corner of the country's South Island. He said a clump of hair found in a wilderness park has been DNA tested and confirms it belongs to a moose.
"When the DNA evidence came in the other day I was absolutely delighted," Mr. Tustin said in an interview from Dunedin, New Zealand. "Saying you've seen a moose down here is a bit like saying you saw a yeti or a UFO."
"I've been ridiculed [and] accused of falling for a hoax, but I assure you it's no hoax," Mr. Tustin said.
The moose hair was found by a pair of hunters in the lush tropical forest of Fiordland National Park in the southwest corner of New Zealand.
They brought it to Mr. Tustin, who gave it to a government agricultural research laboratory. The researchers confirmed the DNA extracted from the hairs matched that of a moose and said they came from a live animal, not a trophy mount.
Mark Boyce, a professor of biology at the University of Alberta, said there have been stories about the New Zealand moose for years, but until now, no confirmation of their existence.
"There have always been these rumours about moose down there," said Mr. Boyce, who travelled to New Zealand last year on an academic exchange program. "The moose of South Island are one of these fables that's been around for years."
Mr. Boyce said a small herd of moose were brought to New Zealand from Saskatchewan in 1909, among hundreds of foreign species introduced to the island by local "acclimatization societies."
"Some of them took and some didn't," he said.
The moose did not thrive in the unfamiliar tropical terrain and were thought to have died out in the 1950s, Mr. Boyce said.
He said any surviving moose would easily be the largest land mammals in New Zealand. An adult male can weigh as much as 900 kilograms and grow to 2.5 metres in height.
The only native mammals in New Zealand are two species of bats, Mr. Boyce said.
Mr. Tustin has made something of a career out of finding the elusive moose, including setting up remote cameras around the dense bush of Fiordland, triggered by motion and heat sensors.
"I've never actually clapped eyes on one - not yet anyway - but I've always been sure they were out there," he said. "We still haven't caught a moose, but we're hopeful."
He does have one grainy photograph, taken from a distance, of a large animal standing near two deer, but acknowledges it is not definitive proof.
Mr. Boyce said there are likely no more than a couple of dozen moose in the entire country. He said it is entirely plausible such large animals could remain hidden for decades.
"That area's pretty dense bush ... it's very wild with almost no roads and dense rain forest vegetation," he said. "It'd be very easy to hide a herd of moose in there."
Some local preservationists are urging New Zealand's Department of Conservation to make it illegal to kill moose, should they exist.
"The moose seem to be very capable of taking care of themselves," Mr. Tustin said.
