A Northland man credited with taking the best shots of wild moose in Fiordland took a secret to the grave - the photos Fred Stewardson claimed he snapped during a hunting trip in 1953 were a sham.
Mr Stewardson allegedly brought the photos out of the mists of time - and myth - last year. They showed three moose supposedly taken in the Wet Jacket Arm on the then 21-year old bushman's 35mm Agfa Super Sillette.
They were described by moose hunter, biologist and documentary filmmaker Ken Tustin as the best photos he had seen of live moose in remote Fiordland. Mr Tustin said that although some of Mr Stewardson's story was patchy, the photos had "knocked his socks off".
But subsequent research, including tracking down Mr Stewardson former wife in Australia, has revealed a hoax.
"It's taken me two years total, and nine months after his death, to establish that Fred Stewardson's moose photos, supposedly taken by him in Wet Jacket Arm in 1953, were actually taken by him in a national park in Banff, Canada, in 1958. Drat," Mr Tustin said yesterday.