{"id":71930,"date":"2025-05-23T09:03:30","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T00:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/may\/23\/new-zealand-moose-mystery-fiordland-national-park"},"modified":"2025-05-23T09:03:30","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T00:03:30","slug":"myth-or-mystery-are-moose-roaming-the-isolated-wilds-of-new-zealand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=71930","title":{"rendered":"Myth or mystery: are moose roaming the isolated wilds of New Zealand?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Claims of a recent sighting of the animal in the vast Fiordland wilderness reignites public fascination in a story that has endured for decades<\/p>\n<p>Over 100 years ago, a ship dropped anchor in the frigid fjords of New Zealand\u2019s South Island and released 10 nervous moose on to the shore. The crew watched as the animals \u2013 the last survivors of a weeks-long voyage from Saskatchewan, Canada \u2013 skittered out of their crates and up into the dense, lonely, rainforest.<\/p>\n<p>The moose had arrived on a flight of fancy, as part of the then premier\u2019s grand vision to turn Fiordland national park into a hunters\u2019 paradise. It was the second attempt to release moose into the region \u2013 in a country whose only native land-based mammals are bats \u2013 after nearly all of an earlier herd died crossing the seas. Red deer and wapiti, or elk, were also released around the same time for game-hunting.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/may\/23\/new-zealand-moose-mystery-fiordland-national-park\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Claims of a recent sighting of the animal in the vast Fiordland wilderness reignites public fascination in a story that has endured for decadesOver 100 years ago, a ship dropped anchor in the frigid fjords of New Zealand\u2019s South Island and released 10 &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2286,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[265,41,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animals","category-asia-pacific","category-new-zealand"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2286"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71930"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71943,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71930\/revisions\/71943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}