in New Zealand, the Haast's eagle died out a mere 500 years ago:

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/09/11/extinct-eagle.html

Hmmm, say a freak storm brings one over to NA... Thunderbird?

I saw that mentioned recently on some special. This looks very similar but it is much more dramatic and graphic than the one I saw. I think that is a harpy eagle shown in the recreation. They are smaller in real life than the Haast's eagle but still huge and dangerous.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wm7FqZVirI

Pretty interesting..

One question..."how do we know that they ate humans"???

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article....jectid=10597177

And native american legend about giant hairy forest-dwelling creature?

woww interesting new article indeedy. ty bill g

Golly. wouldn't it be great to find some DNA in some feathers of these creatures in hopes of re-creating it. Maybe it could help controll some of the invasive species that have so impacted NZ since human encroachment...and resuce hobbits from volcanoes and stuff.

A 3 meter wingspan and talons the size of tiger claws! 500 years gone is not long!

This is a great example of how science has finally confirmed the legend of at least one so-called mythical creature.


And, yes, rescue hobbits from volcanoes and stuff!

Haast's Eagle has been known for many years. Remains have been found in caves decades ago and there is even indisputable maori rock art depicting the bird hunting a moa so I was a bit perplexed by this "news" article till I reread it a couple of times. What the new study seems to have determined through indepth study of the fossils is that it was indeed an active predator. It's been assumed that was the case by the vasty majority, but these guys have taken that assumption and demonstrated it to be correct. I must confess, even living in New Zealand, having studied zoology at university and being deeply interested in our native fauna, I wasn't even aware it's predatory nature was ever in question till I read this report, so it feels a bit like I have just been told something I thought I already knew!

Oh and Bob, the Harpy Eagle comparrison is an excellent one - good call. I think we coudl infer a great deal about the way Haast's Eagle behaved by looking at Harpies and other big forest eagles like the Monkey Eating Eagle. All thre birds have big, rounded, stubby wings and powerful builds, those fantastic thick beaks and big claws. Maori tradition even speaks of a crest on Haast's. I'll bet it would have been awesome to see an animal like that alive.

Dogu - nice one on the Hobbits and volcanoes line! That gave me a big fat chuckle. Joking aside, we do have volcanoes and curiously, there are some legends of Hobbit like creatures in NZ too, including some modern accounts of sightings of little hairy people. I'm struggling to figure out how such creatures could have made it to NZ, considering it hasn't been connected to any other landmass since the Creaceous, but they're fun stories to ponder nonetheless.

Y'know, Reverend Strone, hobbit referrences aside, I was a little skeptical of the presumptions made that these eagles might have also attacked adult Maoris, though we know for fact that other big eagles have attacked human children even with evidence in the hominin fossil record, specifically the Taung Child. Eagles elsewhere can be circumspect in assessing the size of their potential prey, but one description I read alluded to these eagles' talons being the size of tiger's paw, and keeping in mind that like a lot of island animals they might not possess an inate sense of avoidance regarding humans (NZ's Keas and Wekas would be good examples, and presumably moas too). Once the eagles' natural prey, the moas, were becoming scarce humans walking around would have been similar in size and bipedality to present a possible target.
These theories of some kind of humans occupying NZ prior to the arrival of the Maoris arriving in Aeotearoa not that long ago are fascinating, but utterly confounding when trying to explain how it could have happened for the same reasons you cite, though it doesn't hurt to keep an open mind. Cheers.