Wellington (dpa) – New Zealand police are hunting a thief who stole two 123-year-old feathers of an extinct bird worth thousands of dollars each from a museum exhibit, a news report said Tuesday. The white-tipped tail feathers were taken from one of two stuffed huia birds in a glass case at the Gallery of History in Dannevirke, 200 kilometers north of the capital Wellington, volunteer Pat Mills told the Dominion Post newspaper. The stolen feathers came off a pair of birds shot in a nearby valley in 1889 and mounted for a local couple as a wedding gift, she said. The thief pried open a panel in a locked glass container where they had been kept in the museum for 25 years. The last live huia was seen in 1907 and a single feather similar to the stolen ones was sold in June 2010 at auction in Auckland for 8,400 New Zealand dollars (6,900 US dollars). It was said at the time to be a world record for a bird feather. The birds had about 12 white-tipped feathers on the tail, each about 20 centimeters long, and they were traditionally used for adornment by Maori chiefs, Hokimate Harwood, a researcher at New Zealand's National Museum Te Papa, said at the time. She said that when the Duke of York, who later became Britain's George V, visited New Zealand in 1902, a chief gave him a feather, which he wore back home in his hat. “All the women in England wanted one and people were paying a lot of money and that's what led to their extinction,” she said. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/9gFuF Tags: Feathers, Huia, New Zealand, Police, Theft Section: Animals, Latest News, Oceana