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An Australian is adamant the moa is alive and well in remote North Island bush and aims to prove it with photographic evidence.
Rex Gilroy, a New South Wales natural science researcher, says he's closing in on the colony of the presumed-extinct little scrub moa - anomalopteryx didiformis - in the Urewera Ranges.
"I'm convinced the little scrub moa is still alive," he said from his Australia-Pacific Unknown Animals Research Centre at Katoomba in the Blue Mountains.
"I certainly have evidence of a small colony in the Ureweras. As far as I'm concerned they're definitely out there."
Gilroy, a cryptozoologist (studies hidden animals), says he discovered 35 separate ground prints on a visit in 2001 which suggested a colony of up to 15 birds.
In November last year, he discovered evidence of a nest in a rotten, hollowed kauri trunk, and a track through the forest.
But last night the associate professor of zoology at Otago University, David Wharton, dismissed the claims, saying there would have been more sightings if they were still alive.
"I would have thought he would have more luck finding them in Fiordland, where there are fewer people. I think people would have noticed them before now if they were in the Ureweras. It doesn't sound very likely to me."
Gilroy and wife Heather plan to arrive in New Zealand in late February and spend several nights in the Ureweras to stake out the site with a camera "for as long as it takes".
He refuses to reveal the location: "We operate on our own - any larger expedition would create too much noise."
Gilroy, 64, has made eight separate research trips to New Zealand since 1980, when he discovered a lower leg bone of a moa in the far north.
After the Ureweras expedition he plans to visit eight more sites throughout the South Island, from the Abel Tasman National Park to Lake Te Anau, to investigate other moa sightings.
- NZPA
