Canadian moose may not be New Zealand myth
'Out of realm of Nessie': Tuft of hair found in bushland came from moose Randy Boswell, CanWest News Service
Published: Tuesday, November 01, 2005
It's New Zealand's version of the sasquatch, a mythical beast thought by a credulous few to be roaming the deepest, darkest woods of the South Pacific nation -- and by everyone else to be a joke.
Most New Zealanders laugh at claims that Canadian moose have somehow survived in the south island wilderness since the 1910 introduction of 10 antlered immigrants from Saskatchewan. Purported sightings of the gangly ungulate are widely viewed as hoaxes inhabiting the same eco-illogical niche as the Loch Ness monster, Ogopogo and abominable snowman.
But a tuft of hair discovered by biologist Ken Tustin -- a researcher in the remote Fiordland National Park and a long-time believer in the legend -- has tested positive for moose genes at a Canadian DNA lab. The news has sparked a media sensation in New Zealand and prompted one of the country's MPs to demand urgent protection for a beloved species long thought to have disappeared.
"I've been mocked for decades, and now there's this stunning realization that we've had these animals all along," a jubilant Mr. Tustin told CanWest News Service after receiving the test results from Trent University's wildlife forensic DNA laboratory. "This takes the whole thing beyond the realm of hoax. People are astounded because there's been this whole climate of disbelief for so long."
The 10 moose were shipped from Canada to New Zealand at a time when conservation officials around the world were importing and exporting animals with little understanding of the ecological implications of introducing exotic species. Australia's rabbit plague is perhaps the most famous result of such efforts.
Most transplanted species, though, died out after a few generations in their alien environments.
In New Zealand, which has no indigenous land mammals, sportsmen initially thought they'd hit the jackpot when Canadian moose and European red deer seemed to establish themselves in the rain forest at the extreme southwest tip of the country. But as the deer overran their herbivorous cousins and proliferated throughout the country, the last confirmed sighting -- and shooting -- of a New Zealand moose took place in 1952.
A reported glimpse of a moose in 1971 caught the attention of Mr. Tustin, then a young wildlife biologist. The following year he found a set of antlers in the Fiordland reserve. And over the past three decades he has used hidden cameras and recording devices -- unsuccessfully -- to monitor possible moose movements, and amassed a collection of suspected moose scat, bones and hair.
Mr. Tustin didn't have much luck until 2001, when hair found by two hunters was identified by scientists as coming from moose. Skeptics insisted the sample could have been planted to trick Mr. Tustin, who has chronicled his 30-year pursuit of the lost Canadian herd in a book titled Wild Moose Chase.
But the latest specimen, snagged waist-high on the bark of a tree in the deepest reaches of New Zealand's most inaccessible bushland, was found by Mr. Tustin himself.
Trent biologist Linsay Weis says she can't vouch for the origins of the hair samples, but said her species identification analysis showed that nearly all of the hundreds of strands sent by Mr. Tustin were from red deer -- except for two that produced a "robust" result indicating moose.
