Kapua Moa Site, Waimate Gorge

This site is located 8km South West of Waimate. Heading through the gorge you turn onto Kapua Road and you’ll find an information panel detailing the area of an interesting historic discovery in the 19th century.
The land owner in 1894, Mr T A MacDonald, discovered a large cache of Moa bones while clearing a spring hole for water supply to his farm. The find was reported in the Newspaper and the article caught the eye of Professor Frederick Hutton, then curator of the Canterbury Museum. He paid Mac Donald twenty pounds to excavate the site and also sent a taxidermist, Mr W Sparkes, to oversee the dig.
The resulting dig revealed the largest and most varied collection of moa bones ever obtained from one place. During these excavations up to seven railway wagons of bones were taken away, with estimates that 2.5 million bones were removed. A mixture of bones from 6 Moa species was recovered.
The site of the find was on a plain some 3 miles long by 1 mile wide that sat in the basin of a former lake.  When European settlers first arrived in the area there was still a small pond which was later drained and this is the area where the bones were discovered.
Moa roamed throughout many habitats, ranging from open shrub land and riverine grassland to dense forest and at altitudes from sea level to subalpine. Before Moa became extinct this location was a bountiful feeding area dotted with spring holes connected to ground water supplies.
Many of these springs were covered by vegetation and the most likely scenario is that, over the course of generations, a number of unfortunate moa became bogged in these holes and were unable to lever themselves out. Naturally death followed and as the birds decomposed their bones would fall down the holes. The bones at Kapua have been dated from 1014-714BC.
Looking at the peaceful farm land that lies there today is it incredible to think that it was once the grazing grounds for these amazing birds.
Waimate Museum has more information and photos available including footage of a later 1984 excavation that was carried out.
There is also a fascinating Frank Film called Remembering Moa that details the history of Moa in the area, this can be viewed online if you are interested.
Karen Rolleston