The giant moa, a 3-meter bird that disappeared 600 years ago in New Zealand, could soon be 'resurrected'

A long neck, two powerful legs with sharp claws, and a thick coat of brown feathers. Standing at 3.5 meters tall, the giant moa is one of the largest birds to have walked the Earth's surface. For millions of years, this flightless herbivore roamed New Zealand, until the first inhabitants (the Maori ) arrived on the archipelago, estimated to have occurred in the 13th century. In just a hundred years, all nine species of this immense bird became extinct.

But on Tuesday, July 8, the American start-up Colossal Biosciences, which works towards "de-extinction," announced its intention to resurrect the giant bird, six hundred years after its disappearance.

This isn't the first time this company has played with the limits of life, following the model of the mad scientists in Jurassic Park. It already made headlines in 2024, when it claimed to be capable of recreating a mammoth —which hadn't been seen on Earth for 4,000 years—by combining the fossilized genes of the prehistoric species with those of an elephant.

Then a second time, in April 2025, when she boasted of having given birth to "giant wolves" - the twins Romulus and Remus as well as their sister Khaleesy - from a species that had been extinct for ten thousand years: the "dread wolf". At the same time, she even looked into the resurrection of the dodo and the Tasmanian tiger .

This time, Colossal Biosciences has set its sights on a large New Zealand bird, whose existence continues through Maori oral traditions and thousands of bones found in the country's soil.

To do this, the scientists want to combine DNA from moa fossils with genes from eight surviving close relatives, including the Australian emu—a type of ostrich. Once hatched, the genetically modified birds will be released into fenced “rewilding sites,” the Texas-based company says. It says it aims to resurrect the moa within five to ten years, in partnership with the University of Canterbury’s Ngāi Tahu Research Centre.

Even more unusual, this scientific research is reportedly being funded to the tune of 15 million dollars (nearly 13 million euros) by the director of The Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson .

"The hope that in a few years we might see a moa again makes me happier than any film," said the New Zealand producer, who is himself passionate about the extinct bird and has a veritable collection of moa bones - between 300 and 400.

But as with every announcement by Colossal Biosciences about new work on resurrecting an extinct species, criticism is rife. Many researchers claim that it is scientifically impossible to bring prehistoric animals back to life. As Nic Rawlence, a moa expert and associate professor of ancient DNA at the University of Otago in New Zealand, explained to the Guardian : "If you take the dire wolf, its genome has 2.5 billion letters. It's 99 % identical to that of the gray wolf, which is still over a million differences, and they only made 20 changes to 14 genes. So to say they've created a dire wolf is a joke. They've created a custom gray wolf. And it's going to be the same with the moa, no matter what."

Still others criticize the energy and investment put into these experiments, which distract from what is currently happening before our eyes: the extinction of millions of other species, due to the impact of humans and climate change. In a world where wildlife populations have collapsed by 73% , efforts could be focused on what can still be saved.