New Zealand unveils plans to tackle trade in bones of extinct moa birds

Crackdown on illegal excavation and smuggling amid fears that scientific and historic heritage is being lost

New Zealand's conservation minister has released plans to tackle the lucrative trade in the bones of the extinct giant flightless moa bird amid fears that millions of years of science is disappearing as entire skeletons are broken up and sold over the internet or smuggled overseas.

Palaeontologists have been lobbying the government for years to crack down on the trade, with fossils illegally excavated and poached from crown land.