More than $10,000 has been spent on the extraction so far, and Otago Museum director Ian Griffin said the bills would continue to roll in.
He believed it was a burden on Dunedin ratepayers and has called for central government to provide more funding to museums for important projects like this.
The comment was made during questioning by Dunedin City councillors following his report to a community and culture committee meeting yesterday.
After the meeting, he confirmed $11,166 had been spent so far on resource consents and diverting the Kyeburn River, near Ranfurly, with heavy earthmoving machinery to gain access to the moa prints.
''The costs so far are being covered from museum reserves.
''The cost doesn't include staff time. Nor does it cover the cost of conservation, scientific study and future display at the museum.''
He said there would be further staff costs (about $5000) and conservation costs, which were hard to estimate.
''Final exhibition and display costs will probably add another $20,000-$50,000, depending on how and where we decide to display the footprints.
''So probably, a conservative estimate would be somewhere in the region of $40,000 to $80,000 in total.''
Dr Griffin said the prints would be one of the museum's collections that were ''incredibly important internationally'', but that it did not have enough funding to support.
''For the size of the ratepayer base that has to support the collection, we've got a very small number of ratepayers and a really important collection.''
He said Otago Museum received about $4million of funding a year from Otago ratepayers.
By comparison, Canterbury Museum received about $8million in ratepayer funding and Auckland Museum received about $29million. Te Papa received about $35million purely from the Government.
''Our collection is not 10 times smaller than Te Papa's, and in some ways we've got more important stuff in some areas than Te Papa, and yet we get no national funding.
''We have to rely on the ratepayers of Otago to support us.''
He said museum collections in countries such as the United Kingdom were assessed for their national and international significance, and government funding was provided for museums with significant collections.
''We've got a number of moa eggs, we've now got moa footprints, we've got a fantastic collection of Maori and Pacific material, and we've got an amazing collection of Sumerian cuneiform tablets that are probably better than anywhere else in the country.
''What we're trying to argue is that because we've got such an amazing collection, to look after it properly, it requires more funding than we're able to get from the ratepayers.
''Therefore, there's a case to be made to Government that we've got some important stuff down here - why don't you send some funding this way to support the work on it?''
