Wildlife

Extinct

Haast’s eagle

Hieraaetus moorei

Illustration of a Haast’s eagle striking a giant moa in a New Zealand landscape
Image: John Megahan / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5)
Extinct IUCN: EX · Extinct global assessment

What it is

Haast’s eagle (Hieraaetus moorei, formerly Harpagornis) was the largest eagle on record, perhaps 10-15 kilograms, with talons built to kill moa. It is extinct. Ancient DNA places it with small Australasian Hieraaetus hawks, secondarily gigantic.

Range

South Island of New Zealand. It did not occur on the North Island in the same form.

What happened

Polynesian settlers arrived in the thirteenth century and hunted moa out within about 150-200 years. The eagle, specialised on that prey, went with them around the fifteenth century. Eagle bones in middens show people also took the bird itself. Two nineteenth-century sighting claims are not accepted.

When / status

Extinct by about the 1400s, with the moa.

Human role

Prey extinction after human hunting, plus some direct killing: a clear island chain, not a climate event.

Sources

Holdaway and later moa-extinction chronologies; Bunce et al. 2005 (ancient DNA); NZ Birds Online.