Ngā Manu – Birds of New Zealand is taking flight and migrating into storage for a well-earned rest after about 40 years on display. A new and exciting development is taking shape in the gallery based on our land’s most famous big bird, the moa.
The new space will make use of the Museum’s extensive collection of moa bones and artefacts, including the skeletal remains of hundreds of individual birds covering five moa species, caches of gizzard stones, rare examples of moa egg shell, and taonga carved from moa bone.
The gallery will become a visible storage area where visitors will be able to see this amazing collection on show, and a valuable teaching space to convey knowledge about the moa, extinction, sustainability, climate change and invasive species. There will 
also be a small Science Study Centre attached to the gallery which will provide the opportunity for on-going research and work on the collection.
The birds previously on display in the gallery have been taken out of their cases and are now in storage at the Museum. Work has now begun on refitting the cases, upgrading them to contemporary safety and environmental standards to provide the best home for the bones, and new lighting and a paint job will add the finishing touches!
We are very grateful for the Lotteries Environment & Heritage grant we received which will go towards rehousing this outstanding collection, allowing us to give the bones a stable home while making it available as an invaluable learning experience.
