Maori Legend of Man-Eating Birds is True 338
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.'"
Re:so... (Score:5, Informative)
So it wasn't the dingo, after all.
No dingos in NZ.
New Zealand fauna (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:In Tune... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:NZ pacifist warrior culture (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:so... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:so... (Score:2, Informative)
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.
So, aside from the sheep-eating lizards, poisonous insects, deadly spiders, and territorial (and vicious) birds... you'd be perfectly safe.
Last I checked we only had man eating birds, and the odd man eating Maori.
Video link (Score:5, Informative)
There's an amazing video of the native bat running, because it'd evolved to be flightless like the birds.
Video [youtube.com]
Shame on you for talking up something so cool and not providing a link.
Re:so... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually there is no evidence that there was ever any land animals whatsoever in NZ except for lizards, insects and spiders.
However unlike Australia, not all of them are poisonous and potentially fatal to humans...
Re:NZ pacifist warrior culture (Score:1, Informative)
1) At no point in time did I doubt NZ's abilities or say that they have not made very valuable contributions in the past. Quite the opposite.
2) That said I was not aware of the Afghan SAS. I had assumed Helen Clark had put an end any "foreign adventures"
Re:so... (Score:5, Informative)
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 [teara.govt.nz] and on to the lunch menu.
Re:In Tune... (Score:1, Informative)
This is so, so wrong. Slash and burn agriculture (swidden) is generally sustainable form of farming and many indigenous people have practiced it continuously for thousands of years. Swidden has even been shown to improve biodiversity of secondary forests fallows on which it is practiced.
Re:so... (Score:4, Informative)
Deadly spiders? New Zealand has no snakes and only one species of poisonous spider (the Katipo [wikipedia.org]) that's rare, endangered, and found only on coastlands (eg. not inland). The next worse thing (probably a whitetail spider [wikipedia.org]) merely makes you nauseous, and is not deadly.
Because of the tectonic plate movement New Zealand drifted off before animals and before evolution favoured overtly vicious creatures, let alone poisonous creatures.
New Zealand was a land full of birds before humans arrived in about 1000 AD, bringing rats and other animals.
Re:In Tune... (Score:5, Informative)
*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.
Re:Video link (Score:3, Informative)
It's not actually flightless, though it does spend most of its time on the ground.
Re:In Tune... (Score:5, Informative)
Every one of them left an environmental mark on the world around them.
Yes, but the environmental mark was, on average, a lot smaller than modern living. The Australian Aborigines had a way of life that was essentially unchanged for tens of thousands of years. The lifestyle consisted of finding water sources, hunting for food, and collecting wild growing berries and fruits from the land (not farming). Everything that they constructed was made from wood and other natural, biodegradable materials, from completely renewable and sustainable sources. Without intervention, they would probably have continued their lifestyle for tens of thousands of more years. Modern living is not sustainable - we are facing Peak Oil in the next few decades, we have an estimated 20 years or so of coltan supplies left, and we are using up many other limited resources relatively quickly. Our current lifestyle is based on consumption of resources that we can't replace. The Aborigine way of life would still be viable in 200 years, our Western way of life may well not be (people will do their best to adapt, but that adaptation may involve going back to a lifestyle of 200 years ago, with a strong focus on manual agriculture and labour).
Native cultures were famous for "slash and burn" agriculture
Many (most?) native cultures did not practice farming, instead living off wildly growing foods and hunting. Some Aborigines practiced "fire farming [wired.com]" in the last 5,000 years (after 40,000 of not farming in any sense of the word). Researchers suggest that this was sustainable "Aboriginal people's use of fire involved developing a self-sustaining mosaic of burnt and unburnt areas that reduced the damaging effects of fire [abc.net.au]". The fact that it was a stable way of life for 5,000 years suggests that it was more sustainable than the current fossil fuel based lifestyle.
Re:In Tune... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:NZ pacifist warrior culture (Score:2, Informative)
How, exactly, did you think the various (non-English) parts of the United Kingdom became united under an English monarch?
Re:no evidence of land animals? (Score:2, Informative)
Hell, I can't breath ***chest explodes***
Re:so... (Score:2, Informative)
It is well established that dragons were never something that people actually saw... they were imagined monsters. European written and oral tradition simply does not contain any credible tales of human-dragon interaction, and provides ample evidence that no such thing ever happened.
Thanks for playing.