Thursday, 20 August 2020

The Pouakai (Haast’s eagle)

This week we have been writing about extinct native animals to New Zealand
Pouakai (Haast’s eagle)

The Haast’s eagle is the largest eagle to ever live.

The Moāri name for the haast eagle is Pouakai. 


The eagles wings were bigger than the a Smart Fortwo the wingspan is 3000 mm the cars length is 2,695 mm.

You would be able to find them in forests and near a lot of bush places. It lived on the South Island of New Zealand, there were no large predators there, until the māori people came.

The bill for the bird was up to 130 mm long.

The male eagle was smaller than 

the female eagle.


It preyed on large flightless birds like the moa which is 15x its weight the haast eagle weighs 17.8 kgs, and the moa weighed 230 kgs.



The māori hunted māori the moa to extinction due to the Haast’s eagles diet which quickly went extinct.

They also went extinct because of the burning of the south island about 500-600 years ago.

 

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