{"id":606080,"date":"2026-09-20T09:10:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T09:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/606080\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T09:10:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T09:10:13","slug":"timaru-woman-finds-rare-moa-bones-during-daily-beach-walk-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/606080\/","title":{"rendered":"Timaru woman finds rare moa bones during daily beach walk"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MoaMoa bones discovered on St Andrews Beach, south of Timaru. Photo \/ Pippa Yates<\/p>\n

\u201cI was kind of second-guessing myself though, so I took photos and continued on my walk. It was only on the walk back that I took a second look and was pretty certain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yates said she was concerned about the bones being covered over again or destroyed by the sea \u2013 as she had seen happen to ancient trees that were recently unearthed.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first thought when I got home was to call the [South Canterbury] museum … they had experts confirm they believed they were moa,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

\"ThisThis part of what is believed to be a moa’s foot was among several bones discovered by a woman walking at St Andrews Beach. Photo \/ Pippa Yates<\/p>\n

After checking with the museum, Yates\u2019 husband dug up the bones to preserve them.<\/p>\n

Then after the initial find, she located more bones.<\/p>\n

\u201cI walk the same route every day so the day after I found the ankle\/foot bone and a few other small fragments nearby,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found another two larger pieces which I\u2019m going to bring my nieces and nephew to see with their dad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earth Sciences emeritus palaeontologist Dr Hamish Campbell told the Herald it was a \u201cfascinating\u201d discovery.<\/p>\n

\u201cHumans modify landscapes by digging up and putting new buildings and things, goodness knows what we\u2019re destroying.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people don\u2019t know what they\u2019re walking over.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn general people are finding them [fossils] less and less, but I do think we will keep finding them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campbell said the first port of call for anyone who has found bones and other fossils would be to tell their local museum.<\/p>\n

The Yates family had been scouring the beach for about four years after hearing about a man finding a moa footprint and bones, Yates said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI walk looking at my feet basically the entire time where we walk, specifically in all the clay banks, we always look in those areas thinking we might see a footprint, and that\u2019s something I can bring my daughter back to see,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"AA larger view of the moa bones a woman discovered during her daily walk at St Andrews Beach, south of Timaru, on Friday.<\/p>\n

Yates said her daughter received a sandpit for Christmas with animal bones and gemstones for her to find, \u201cso she is often out there discovering \u2018treasures\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can just imagine how excited she was to see and touch real \u2018dinosaur bird bones\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yates said the family planned on keeping a few of the larger bones and possibly piece them together.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a legacy to have it on display, and any of the tiny little bits, we\u2019re going to put in specimen jars and bring them to the [kindergarten] and the school to have a look at as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe bones today on St Andrews Beach, south of Timaru. Photo \/ Pippa Yates<\/p>\n

She hoped to put them on display in their home for visitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut any of the really obviously bone-looking bones, we\u2019re going to try and give back to the museum, which will be nice to have on display,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Additional text by RNZ<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Moa bones discovered on St Andrews Beach, south of Timaru. Photo \/ Pippa Yates \u201cI was kind of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7972,26985,5981,2837,11424,42,170656,43,6029,8205,1240,43876,164120,11729,40,38,41,39,17251,73426,34890,28561,1354],"class_list":["post-606080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-beach","tag-bones","tag-daily","tag-during","tag-finds","tag-headlines","tag-moa","tag-news","tag-once","tag-rare","tag-south","tag-stumbled","tag-successive","tag-timaru","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-twice","tag-upon","tag-walk","tag-walks","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}