Eugene Plawiuk (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} plawiuk) wrote,@ 2005-11-03 03:00:00 |
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Cryptozoology: Does a Moose Make a Sound in the Forest?
So when it comes to mysterious or unknown beasts we don't have to look for exotic animals to fit the bill, no need to think that a brontosaurus is stomping around in the forest...nope in the world of cryptozoology it can be even as common as a Canadian Moose....in Exile in New Zealand.......
0/20: A wild moose chase
Oct 20, 2005
DNA test findings reignite hopes of Fiordland moose
06 October 2005
A new series of DNA tests confirms hair found in a remote part of Fiordland came from one of a supposedly long-extinct New Zealand population of Canadian moose.
The results are the second since June 2001 to suggest at least one of the increasingly mythical animals, introduced to Fiordland from North America in 1910 and last seen more than 30 years ago, was still alive.
At his home at Bull Creek in South Otago, scientist and moose-hunter Ken Tustin called the "very exciting" findings independent proof of a "subjective" hunch he had pursued since the 1970s.
"Significantly, this means that we have real, scientific proof that an animal people said died out decades ago was actually still alive close to when we collected this sample," Mr Tustin said.
"We know that instead of being dead, that a moose stood on a beach on the northern side of the Wet Jacket Arm, that it fed there, and that it moved on to feed somewhere else."
"This puts the hunt outside the realm of a hoax, which is what people said when the first hairs were found. I have seen enough physical evidence they are there, and this just confirms what I believe."
Mr Tustin and wife Margie collected the sample during a regular visit to the thickly-wooded and steep area in October 2002, from hair snagged on waist-high scrub on a beach opposite Oke Island.
The find was made a considerable distance from Shark Cove on the south side of Dusky Sound near where, one year earlier, Kelvin and Charlie Harper found hair that DNA tests in said came from a moose.
Hamilton-based researchers Deer Improvement sent the Tustins' sample, the already-tested Harper hair, and about 40 other samples to a forensic laboratory at Trent University in Ontario, Canada earlier this year.
The laboratory, which specialises in wildlife DNA, returned the results late last month, and both samples were confirmed as having come from a moose, Deer Improvement director Peter Gatley said yesterday.
Mr Gatley had "complete confidence" in the laboratory and its methods, and was especially excited the hair could only have been exposed to the elements for "weeks, rather than years" to give a viable DNA reading.
A couple of dozen samples of suspected moose faeces, collected by Mr Tustin since the early 1990s, were likely to be DNA-tested before the end of the year was also "tantalising and exciting".
"This is not quite the photograph that people who do not believe there are moose there might want, but boy, this really is the next best thing," Mr Gatley said.
A herd of 10 Canadian moose were introduced to Fiordland's Supper Cove in 1910, but their population declined steadily under pressure from red deer until the last rumoured sighting in 1971.
Spurred by that sighting, his discovery of a moose antler in 1972, and now backed by the New Zealand Wildlife Trust, Mr Tustin spends about two months each year in the Dusky Sound area documenting evidence of moose occupation.
Moose had eluded a network of cameras in the area but physical evidence, such as bedding spots and browsing and antler marks, suggested as many as 20 animals might still live there, Mr Tustin said.
A Natural History New Zealand camera took a blurred image of a suspected moose in 1995, and Mr Tustin believed he had come so close "that the hairs on my neck stood up...and I could smell it had been there".
"But people still doubt it, and why wouldn't they, because this is such an unlikely event. But now we have more than my subjective observations. Now we have independent evidence of the real thing."
Mr Tustin hoped confirming moose lived in Fiordland until at least 2002 would force the animal back into New Zealand literature as a permanent part of the country's wilderness fauna.
It might also start a debate about whether an exotic animal that had survived in such an inhospitable environment should be protected, Mr Tustin said.
So when it comes to mysterious or unknown beasts we don't have to look for exotic animals to fit the bill, no need to think that a brontosaurus is stomping around in the forest...nope in the world of cryptozoology it can be even as common as a Canadian Moose....in Exile in New Zealand.......
0/20: A wild moose chase
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Pete Cronshaw from 20/20 goes bush with a man who has spent the last 35 years searching for a herd of Canadian moose last seen in Fiordland more than 50 years ago.
The debate on whether they still exist has raged for years but took a new twist a few weeks ago when DNA testing suggested the legendary beasts might still be there.
The two metre prehistoric giant was given up for dead half a century ago but Ken Tustin swears it's no ghost he has come close to "maybe a dozen times".
DNA test findings reignite hopes of Fiordland moose
06 October 2005
A new series of DNA tests confirms hair found in a remote part of Fiordland came from one of a supposedly long-extinct New Zealand population of Canadian moose.
The results are the second since June 2001 to suggest at least one of the increasingly mythical animals, introduced to Fiordland from North America in 1910 and last seen more than 30 years ago, was still alive.
At his home at Bull Creek in South Otago, scientist and moose-hunter Ken Tustin called the "very exciting" findings independent proof of a "subjective" hunch he had pursued since the 1970s.
"Significantly, this means that we have real, scientific proof that an animal people said died out decades ago was actually still alive close to when we collected this sample," Mr Tustin said.
"We know that instead of being dead, that a moose stood on a beach on the northern side of the Wet Jacket Arm, that it fed there, and that it moved on to feed somewhere else."
"This puts the hunt outside the realm of a hoax, which is what people said when the first hairs were found. I have seen enough physical evidence they are there, and this just confirms what I believe."
Mr Tustin and wife Margie collected the sample during a regular visit to the thickly-wooded and steep area in October 2002, from hair snagged on waist-high scrub on a beach opposite Oke Island.
The find was made a considerable distance from Shark Cove on the south side of Dusky Sound near where, one year earlier, Kelvin and Charlie Harper found hair that DNA tests in said came from a moose.
Hamilton-based researchers Deer Improvement sent the Tustins' sample, the already-tested Harper hair, and about 40 other samples to a forensic laboratory at Trent University in Ontario, Canada earlier this year.
The laboratory, which specialises in wildlife DNA, returned the results late last month, and both samples were confirmed as having come from a moose, Deer Improvement director Peter Gatley said yesterday.
Mr Gatley had "complete confidence" in the laboratory and its methods, and was especially excited the hair could only have been exposed to the elements for "weeks, rather than years" to give a viable DNA reading.
A couple of dozen samples of suspected moose faeces, collected by Mr Tustin since the early 1990s, were likely to be DNA-tested before the end of the year was also "tantalising and exciting".
"This is not quite the photograph that people who do not believe there are moose there might want, but boy, this really is the next best thing," Mr Gatley said.
A herd of 10 Canadian moose were introduced to Fiordland's Supper Cove in 1910, but their population declined steadily under pressure from red deer until the last rumoured sighting in 1971.
Spurred by that sighting, his discovery of a moose antler in 1972, and now backed by the New Zealand Wildlife Trust, Mr Tustin spends about two months each year in the Dusky Sound area documenting evidence of moose occupation.
Moose had eluded a network of cameras in the area but physical evidence, such as bedding spots and browsing and antler marks, suggested as many as 20 animals might still live there, Mr Tustin said.
A Natural History New Zealand camera took a blurred image of a suspected moose in 1995, and Mr Tustin believed he had come so close "that the hairs on my neck stood up...and I could smell it had been there".
"But people still doubt it, and why wouldn't they, because this is such an unlikely event. But now we have more than my subjective observations. Now we have independent evidence of the real thing."
Mr Tustin hoped confirming moose lived in Fiordland until at least 2002 would force the animal back into New Zealand literature as a permanent part of the country's wilderness fauna.
It might also start a debate about whether an exotic animal that had survived in such an inhospitable environment should be protected, Mr Tustin said.
