Kiwi Moose 2008

For years the New Zealand media has reported claims that Canadian moose may still roam the remote rain forests in the extreme southwest tip of the country.

In 1910, ten moose were brought over from Saskatchewan in the hopes of establishing a population of game for sportsman in New Zealand, a country without indigenous land mammals of its own.

However, the last official sighting — and shooting — of a New Zealand moose was in 1952. Outside of a few alleged sightings in the 1970s and the discovery of some curious droppings, no one has actually seen the mysterious creatures, leading most Kiwis to consider the story a hoax.

That is, until some recent hair samples were sent to Trent’s Wildlife DNA Forensics Lab, where biologist Linsay Weis confirmed two strands produced a “robust” result indicating moose.

Although she can’t confirm the origins of the hair, the results prompted one of the country’s MPs to demand urgent protection for a beloved species long thought to have disappeared.

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

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