The Beasts that Hide from Man (19 page)

SO ENORMOUS THAT IT WAS VESTED WITH SUFFICIENT strength to carry full-grown elephants aloft in its diabolical talons, the awesome roc is unquestionably among the most famous giant birds of fantasy But in support of that hoary old adage “Fact is stranger than fiction” are the many examples of gigantic feathered forms from the present and the past whose diverse histories are chronicled within the annals of zoology Several—such as the ostrich, emu, Andean condor, and the extinct moas of New Zealand—are well known to everyone.

There are also a few famous cryptozoological examples, including North America’s thunderbird-related “big bird,” and Egypt’s heron-like bennu. Both were documented in my book
In Search of Prehistoric Survivors
(1995). There are others, conversely, that will be much less familiar, including the following selection, a veritable phalanx of ambivalent avians whose mighty pinions span the boundaries of reality and reverie, submitting for investigation some of the world’s greatest crypto-ornithological challenges.

The ratites comprise a loose taxonomie group of giant flightless birds lacking a keel on their sternum (breastbone), and include the ostrich, emu, cassowaries, and rheas, as well as a number of extinct types, such as the New Zealand moas, the Madagascan elephant birds, and the Australian mihirungs. Several unexplained anomalies of ornithology appear to involve ratites, but one of the most unexpected must surely be this first example.

During summer 1970, dingo hunter Peter Muir found and photographed some strange two-toed tracks in the spinifex (a spiny-seed grass) desert area near Laverton, Western Australia. Local aboriginals claimed that they were from an ogre-like monster, the
tjangara
or spinifex man. Scientists initially assumed that they were merely emu tracks, but swiftly retracted this view because emus leave
three-toed
versions. Only one known creature produces two-toed tracks like those at Laverton—
Struthio camelus
, the African ostrich!

Yet the concept of ostriches living wild in Australia is by no means ludicrous. Far from it. Small populations of feral (runwild) ostriches still persist north of Adelaide, South Australia— descended from specimens released by ostrich farmers after World War I, when the feather market collapsed.

As the ostrich is a desert-hardy bird that can travel great distances in short periods of time, in 1971 zoologist Ivan T. Sanderson suggested that some ex-farm specimens may not only have survived and bred but also have discreetly extended their range across the intervening desertlands into Western Australia, and thence to Laverton. (Incidentally, it is known that ostriches were released in Western Australia before 1912, but these “officially” died out without establishing a population.) This would offer a plausible explanation for the mystery of the two-toed tracks and their unseen originator(s)—aptly dubbed by Australian wags “the abominable spinifex man.” Indeed, if the Laverton environs were not so sparsely populated, the existence of ostriches there may have been confirmed by now.

It is well established that the extinct moas comprised a group of ratites exclusive to New Zealand—which is why the little-known tale of the Queensland moa is worth retelling. In 1884, this zoogeographical heretic was christened
Dinornis queenslandiae
by C.W. de Vis (at that time the director of the Queensland Museum), who based its species on a fossilized, incomplete left femur, spotted by him in a collection of bones from King’s Creek, Queensland. Naturally, this specimen attracted great interest among ornithologists, as it extended the moas’ distribution very considerably. No longer were they a novelty of New Zealand—always assuming, of course, that it really was a moa.

Over the years, this assumption became a much-debated issue. In 1893, for instance, F.W. Hutton deemed the bone to be from a cassowary-like species that probably represented the common ancestor of emus and cassowaries (which are currently classed together within the same taxonomie order). Then in 1949 its species was readmitted to the moa brotherhood, when Dr. W.R.B. Oliver of Wellington’s Dominion Museum renamed it
Pachyornis queenslandiae
. By the early 1960s, conversely, it was back among the emus and cassowaries, when in 1963 Alden H. Miller classified it as an emu, dubbing it
Dromiceius (=Dromaius) queenslandiae
. It seemed as if this contentious species would be spending the rest of time ricocheting from one ratite family to another—but then came the study that finally brought its taxonomie tribulations to a long-awaited end.

This was when, in April 1967, osteologist Ron Scarlett from New Zealand’s Canterbury Museum not only examined this femur and revealed that it was indeed from a
Pachyornis moa
, but also paid close attention to the other bones in the original King’s Creek collection within which it had been found by de Vis back in the 1880s. In so doing, Scarlett recognized that the femur was strikingly different in general appearance and color from the rest of this collection’s material, and clearly had not been obtained with it. In addition, his very appreciable experience with moa bones derived from caves, Maori middens, swamps, and other sources of such remains enabled him to reveal something even more significant— the femur was readily identifiable as a bone originating from a midden in New Zealand’s South Island
(Memoirs of the Queensland Museum
, 1969). It was not from Australia at all!

The famous Queensland moa was just another non-existent creature that had been granted a transient reality by the evocation of inaccurate information and incomplete investigation—a mere monster of misidentification, nothing more.
Pachyornis queenslandiae
, R.I.P.!

As for the moas in their native New Zealand, most ornithologists believe that these have been resting in peace for several centuries—with possibly a couple of notable exceptions. Although some of the 11 species of moa were six feet to 12 feet tall, and ranged in appearance from the sturdy and elephantine to the graceful and ostrich-like, a few were relatively small and inconspicuous. One of these latter species, the upland moa
Megalapteryx didinus
, is of particular interest because it may have survived until as recently as the mid-1800s, and perhaps even later than that. Some ornithologists have expressed a degree of optimism that it could have survived undetected into the present day.

As discussed in my book
Extraordinary Animals Worldwide
(1991), this hope is fuelled by reports concerning a mysterious “giant kiwi,” said by the Maoris to have spurs on its feet and to be the size of a turkey. According to some writers, it is known locally as the
roaroa
, but in fact this is the name given by the Maoris to the largest
known
kiwi, the great-spotted kiwi
Aptéryx haasti
. Nevertheless,
A. haasti
is much smaller than a turkey and does not have spurred feet. Nor did the upland moa, but it was indeed turkey-sized. Moreover, it is very likely that in life it closely resembled a very large kiwi
(Megalapteryx
translates as “big kiwi”). Also, it had a well-developed clawed hallux on each foot that might conceivably be likened or referred to by non-specialists as a spur (so too do kiwis, but they are of course smaller birds than the upland moa). So is the elusive “giant kiwi” really a miniature moa?

After utilizing the latest computer technology in conjunction with fossil specimens (revealing its throat structure) to reconstruct the upland moa’s voice, in February and March 1978 a Japanese expedition led by Gunma University biologist Dr. Shoichi Hollie trekked through South Island’s Fjordland, playing the reconstituted cry in the hope of enticing a living
Megalapteryx
into view. Their call went unanswered.

When is a moa not a moa? When it is actually an antler-bearing stag! That, at least, is one official view held in relation to photos obtained of what its stunned observers have claimed to be a living moa of the six-foot-tall variety, far removed indeed from the diminutive
Megalapteryx
. This extraordinary episode in the continuing controversy regarding the prospect of moa survival hit the news headlines worldwide in late January 1993.

According to the accounts, of which the most detailed were those of New Zealand’s own
Christchurch Press
newspaper (which gave the unfolding drama front-page coverage for several days), the bird was allegedly seen shortly after 11:00 a.m. on January 20,1993, by three experienced hikers tramping in Canterbury’s Craigieburn Range, South Island. The trio consisted of Paddy Freaney (a former instructor with the British Army’s highly renowned Special Air Service, i.e. the S.A.S., who now runs Bealey Hotel at Arthur’s Pass), Rochelle Rafferty (a gardener employed at Freaney’s hotel), and Sam Waby (head of the art department at Ar anui High School). After hiking for approximately four hours, they had reached a Harper Valley riverbed. Waby paused to take a drink when suddenly Freaney caught sight of an extremely large bird standing by a bush, roughly 40 yards away. Hardly believing his eyes, he whispered to the others to look, and as soon as Waby saw it he unhesitatingly identified it as a moa.

Freaney, who was closest to the bird, stated that its body height was about three feet, and that it possessed a long thin neck that was also about three feet, which terminated in a small head and beak. Its legs were very large and thick, clothed in feathers almost down to the knees, but the lower portions were bare, as were its huge feet. Its body’s feathers were reddish-brown and grey. As soon as it saw its three observers, the bird ran away, racing across a small stream as Freaney vainly attempted to keep pace with it in order to take some photographs. At a distance of 35 to 40 yards, he succeeded in snapping one blurred photo of the bird itself, by bushes and rock formations, as well as some of what he thought might be a wet footprint left behind by it on a rock and others in shingle by the riverbed. The bird vanished from sight amid some dense bushes. The entire incident, from Freaney’s initial sighting of the bird to its successful disappearance, lasted no more than 30 seconds, but the three observers were totally convinced that it was a genuine moa.

When news of this incredible occurrence reached officialdom, the reaction elicited was a turbulent blend of bewilderment, caution, excitement, suspicion, and outright astonishment. Discounting the possibility of a hoax, Dr. Ken Hughey Protection Officer in New Zealand’s Department of Conservation (DOC), announced that the creature in the photograph was either a bona fide moa or an escapee emu—for as stated by Andy Grant, the DOC’s Protected Species Officer, it was clearly not an ostrich, the only other bird of comparable form.

As it happens, there is an emu-breeding center in Canterbury, at the Isaac Wildlife Trust, but inquiries revealed that none of its birds had escaped. Similarly, although 1992 had seen the Trust’s first sales of emu chicks, these had not taken place until October and November and the chicks had only been six weeks old. Even if one of these had escaped from its new home, it would have still been far too small to explain the Freaney trio’s encounter.

And so, on January 26 the DOC announced that it would be sending an investigative team to the locality of their sighting, in search of fecal pellets, feathers, and any other evidence for the presence of what would unquestionably comprise—if its existence were indeed formally confirmed—the greatest zoological discovery in New Zealand in 200 years. And then it all went sadly wrong. On that same day, Moana Railway Station’s owner, Dennis Dunbar, revealed in a
Christchurch Press
report by Diane Keenan that he and Freaney had become friendly rivals in striving to obtain the best stories for media coverage, and that Freaney had told him a few months ago that his next feat would outdo anything that had previously taken place between them.

By the following day, the DOC had announced that it would not be sending out its team after all. Dr. Hughey revealed that in addition to the disclosure of Dunbar’s comments by the media, a number of rumors lending weight to the possibility that the sighting had been a hoax had been reported to the DOC—hence it would be making further contact with the trio of observers before making any final decision regarding a formal search.