Extinct New Zealand eagle may have eaten humans

“Only 500? Incredible.”

Only 500 because the Maori were the first humans to arrive, and they arrived relatively late, only 1000 years ago or less. Much like North America, where the arrival of migrating Siberians about 10,000 years ago coincides with the following rapid extinction of large North American mammals.

What’s interesting about New Zealand is that, because NZ was volcanic in origin and geographically remote, birds arrived there first, and then, without any competition, were able to evolve to fill all the ecological niches, i.e., the large grazers, the predators, etc were all some form of bird. So the Haast eagle was the premier predator, hunting the biggest prey — huge flightless grazing birds.

By the way, there was a British explorer-hunter who, when traveling in the NZ mountains during the early days of exploration, casually remarked in a diary that he shot and ate 2 very large birds of prey. Those birds may have been the last 2 birds of the species, or a related predator species.

"I remember the MGB being a small car, but so small an eagle thought he could take one???"

If he thought he could have taken my car, I'm sure he would have given it the old college try. I'm just saying he took his own sweet time coming to the conclusion that maybe it was just a weeeeee bit too big. There was no doubt in my mind that its wingspan was wider than my car...;-)

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.