Bird of the Year contest gets New Zealand in a flap
First there was the ‘Jacinda effect’ and a government to cobble together. Then came the mania for the jade Kākāriki, the shining cuckoo and the stern Ruru.
New Zealand’s Bird of the Year Competition has kicked off, and it has galvanized voters with the same intensity as the recent election. Now in its 13th year, the poll pits the country’s rare and endangered birds against one another: The cheeky Kea versus the shy Kiwi, the dowdy Bar Tailed Godwit against the alluring Hihi, theguardian.com wrote.
There are 168 bird species in New Zealand and none of them have ever won twice. Around a third are threatened with extinction and dozens more are on the endangered list. Some species have dwindled into a few hundred individuals tucked away in isolated pockets of the country.
Forest and Bird’s Kimberley Collins — minutes before she hiked into the Hooker Valley on a twitching trek — said, “New Zealanders get really into it.
“There are huge social media campaigns, dozens of memes and videos — we’ve even had a smear campaign this year, with the Black-billed Gull unof¿cially being campaigned for by a radio station, who have been publically sledging other birds. They called the Kererū an ‘overweight tree rat’ and the White Faced Heron ‘racist’.”
With three days before polling closes, a record 50,000 votes have been cast (20,000 more than last year) although more than 100 had to be discounted when it was discovered they were rigged by a bird enthusiast from Christchurch.
“Someone cast 112 fraudulent votes for the White-faced Heron,” said Collins.
“I was alerted to this by a data scientist who happens to track the votes with a computer programmer. He noticed a big spike for the heron at midnight on the ¿rst day of voting. We have increased our security and blocked all those votes. We currently don’t have any leads or any suspects.”
Polls opened on October 9 and for the ¿rst week #birdoftheyear was trending in the top 10 spots on New Zealand Twitter, as well as featuring in nightly news bulletins and radio broadcasts countrywide.
In a week when the future of New Zealand was being decided the avian competition provided a welcome relief for New Zealanders, some of whom have got tattoos of their favorite bird, with politicians and celebrities devoting precious hours to championing their favorites.
Former All Black captain and director of Christchurch Helicopters Richie Mccaw has thrown his support behind the Kākāriki, going so far as to paint one of the squad’s helicopters with the critically endangered bird. Only about 300 are left in the wild.
The Department of Conservation’s threatened species ambassador Nicola Toki was not voting, as she said it wouldn’t be fair because all the contenders are ‘her babies’.
Toki said the ones that do best in the competition tend to be ‘the pandas of the bird world’, such as the Takahē and Kākāpō which are large with vibrant colors and charismatic personalities.
“We don’t really have megafauna in New Zealand, we don’t have lions or tigers or bears, so the next best thing we’ve got is the Kākāpō and Kiwi and Kea; the poster- children of bird conservation in New Zealand.”
Loss of habitat, introduced predators such as rats, stoats and possums and the increasing effects of climate change have had a ‘devastating’ impact on New Zealand’s birds, which evolved in isolation without ground-based predators for millions of year. Some, like the Kiwi and Weka, can’t Ày, and have no natural defenses besides running away, rather slowly.
The competition is intentionally fun and lighthearted — an antidote, said Toki, to recent global events and the general election.
“I personally think New Zealanders are so attuned to this stuff,” said Toki.
“A few years ago, National Radio tried to get rid of the bird call at 9 a.m. and there was national outrage that such a thing could happen and they had to back down.
“New Zealand’s connection to the bush has been described as ethereal and almost soulful. I think what that says is nature is our church, it is our connection to our spirit.”
The results will be announced on Tuesday morning on radio national, just before the daily bird-call at 9 a. m.