MARCH 24, 02:47 EST 

Study: Birds Hunted to Extinction 

By PAUL RECER 
AP Science Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) — A huge, flightless bird called the Moa was extinct within 
just a few decades after humans first arrived at the animals' New Zealand 
homeland, suggesting that whole species can be wiped out more quickly than 
once believed. 

That's the conclusion of a new study appearing today in the journal Science. 

Researchers said that the first humans arrived in New Zealand about the year 
1250, bringing with them sharp stone points, wood and bone clubs, controlled 
fire and a natural hunger for meat. 

The Moas, some of which grew to 440 pounds, had no sense of how dangerous 
humans could be and quickly fell prey to the snares and clubs of hungry 
hunters, said Richard N. Holdaway of Palaecol Research in Christchurch, New 
Zealand. 

``There has been a debate as to whether humans can exterminate anything by 
hunting,'' said Holdaway. ``Our study shows that not only can people hunt 
things to extinction, but they can do it very quickly.'' 

Moa previously had been thought to have disappeared over about 1,000 years, 
but the study by Holdaway and Christopher Jacomb of Canterbury Museum in 
Christchurch indicates that the extinction occurred in 60 to 160 years. 

Holdaway said the Moa were primed for extinction. The 11 species ranged from 
birds that stood 6 1/2 feet tall and weighed hundreds of pounds to 
turkey-sized fowl. They were the only known feathered birds without wings. 
Their fatal characteristic may have been a lack of fear of humans. 

``They would have been very easy to kill,'' said Holdaway. One expert 
suggests obtaining a Moa for dinner would have been ``like plucking fruit'' 
for the stone-age hunters. 

A study of the bones and other debris scattered about ancient human camp 
sites in New Zealand shows that Moa was ``a major source of food for these 
people, providing 30 to 40 percent of their caloric intake,'' said Holdaway. 

But that only lasted for a few decades, he said. Eventually, Moa bones became 
rarer and then disappeared altogether from the archeological record. Holdaway 
believes New Zealand settlers hunted them to death. 

``In effect, there was the removal of a complete ecosystem within 160 years 
or less,'' said Holdaway. 

The conclusion by Holdaway and Jacomb is considered controversial among 
experts because of its speed and because some doubt that hunting alone is 
ever sufficient to wipe out whole species. 

``There are extinctions that have followed hard on the heels of human 
arrivals, but as to it being caused by hunting alone, that doesn't seem 
plausible,'' said Ross D.E. MacPhee, a zoologist at the American Museum of 
Natural History. ``There must have been cofactors, such as disease.'' 

MacPhee said that vast numbers of extinctions occurred after humans arrived 
in the Americas. Animals such as the mammoth, the camel, the horse and the 
sabertooth tiger all disappeared after humans arrived about 11,000 years ago. 
But he said the extinctions took about 400 years, not the short period that 
Holdaway is proposing for the Moa in New Zealand. 

Holdaway said that one reason for the rapid loss of the Moa was that the bird 
lived for a long period of time and reproduced infrequently. When humans 
started killing the adults and eating the Moa eggs, he said, the population 
crashed quickly. 

``We think this shows that when you push things too hard, you get to a point 
where it suddenly falls down,'' he said. ``You may not even notice what is 
happening until it is too late.'' 

Holdaway said the first New Zealand settlers, Polynesians who are the 
ancestors of the present-day Maori, arrived about 1250. They brought with 
them not only weapons, but also egg-eating rats that contributed to the 
widespread New Zealand extinctions. 

Within only a few decades, the Moa were gone, along with many ground birds, 
frogs and snakes. History's largest eagle, a 35-pound bird called Haast's 
eagle, was gone. 

The settlers used fire as a weapon and tool, burning into extinction an 
entire forest that was then replaced by grassland. An estimated 40 percent of 
the woody plants became extinct, said Holdaway, and this destroyed habitats. 

By the time Europeans arrived in New Zealand, in the 18th century, said 
Holdaway, hundreds of animals and plants were gone forever.