Sex tapes and escapes: NZ’s animal heroes
From interspecies inappropriateness to unsolved mysteries, Kiwi creatures have long been making headlines. By Virginia Fallon.
If you’re after a bit of murder, mystery and tales of salacious behaviour, New Zealand’s animals have got you covered. Aotearoa’s creatures have been making headlines for decades, and while some tales are heartwarming, a few heartbreaking and others just plain weird, their names have become part of the Kiwi lexicon.
For no reason in particular, the Sunday StarTimes is taking a look back at some of the country’s best known beasties.
Our coverage begins on a Ka¯ piti Coast beach with an animal whose happy name is not so happy ending.
When an emperor penguin emerged from the Peka Peka waves in 2011 it was the second only recorded appearance of the species in NZ.
Later named Happy Feet, the confused metretall bird was discovered eating sand and twigs in what experts thought was a mistaken attempt to cool down. Penguins usually eat ice to do this but as Happy Feet was 4000 kilometres from where he should have been in Antarctica he made do with what he had.
Raced to Wellington Zoo’s vet clinic, the bird underwent several operations to flush out his stomach, becoming an international sensation in the process. Returning him to Antarctica risked infecting other penguins with diseases so after 10 weeks in therapy he was pushed off a boat into the waters off the Campbell Islands.
Fans watched intently as a satellite tracker pinged back his progress but five days after he started swimming, it stopped. Whether it fell off or Happy Feet became orca food will never be known, the only thing we are sure of is the penguin racked up $30,000 of treatment while he was here.
And while he may be gone he’ll never be forgotten. In 2011 a Ka¯ piti shopping mall immortalised the bird with a $10,000 statue.
Happy Feet’s ending may have been mysterious but another beloved aquatic visitor’s was a clear-cut case of murder.
Opo the dolphin became a national celebrity in the mid-1950s, sparking a tourist boom for Northland’s Opononi with her friendly antics.
Thousands flocked to frolic with the mammal who juggled beach balls and beer bottles on her nose and seemed particularly fond of children. Unfortunately the bottlenose also experienced jabs with oars and fights for her attention, thus in March 1956 a council order made it an offence to ‘‘take or molest any dolphin in Hokianga Harbour’’.
But it was too late for Opo who was found dead on rocks the following day, an investigation revealing she’d been killed in a gelignite explosion. Years later resident Joyce Harnett recalled being a witness to the examination of Opo’s body, saying she’d known the dolphin’s time was up because it kept following fisherman’s boats and eating their intended catches.
‘‘No-one ever confessed to blowing her up but in a small community like this people had a fair
idea of who did it.’’ A statue was later built in her honour. Its head has been lopped off twice.
Opo wasn’t NZ’s only visitor from the deeps. In the early 1980s a three-tonne sea elephant named Humphrey heaved himself ashore at Whangamata to both delight and endanger beachgoers. He spent the next few years snorting and roaring about the Coromandel coastline before lumbering off to a Wharekawa dairy farm where he settled down to sexually harass a herd of cows.
Refusing to return to the sea, Humphrey wreaked havoc for months as he smashed fences and irrigation lines while eluding attempts to tranquillise him. An electric fence was eventually used to cut him off, then one day he was gone for good. Like Opo and Happy Feet Humphrey was commemorated with a statue, though his wasn’t to scale.
Nigel the gannet hasn’t got a statue, although
he did fall in love with one. Perhaps the loneliest bird in the world, Nigel was the first gannet in 40 years that flew in to roost on Mana Island, but instead of bringing a partner he became infatuated with one of the 80 decoys designed to lure real birds to the cliffs.
Nigel built his concrete mate a nest out of seaweed and sticks, and was seen by volunteers trying to woo it. His tale of unrequited love made international headlines, but after four years of unsuccessful courting Nigel was found dead in the nest next to his stone-hearted partner, just weeks after three real gannets arrived at the island.
Despite a finding of kidney damage, a pathologist’s report couldn’t rule out weed spraying as a cause of the bird’s demise. Nonetheless the Department of Conservation concluded he died of natural causes.
‘In 2011 a Ka¯piti shopping mall immortalised Happy Feet with a $10,000 statue.’
Just like Nigel and Humphrey, Sirocco the randy ka¯ ka¯ po¯ gained international fame for his misguided romantic overtures. His 2009 sex tape played to the world after he mounted the head of zoologist Mark Carwardine while filming a BBC documentary with comedian Stephen Fry.
‘‘You are being shagged by a rare parrot,’’ Fry observed.
Sirroco shot to stardom and in 2010 was declared the Department of Conservation’s spokesbird with the blessing of Prime Minister John Key. His penchant for people likely stemmed from being hand raised after hatching in 1997.
Sirroco went on to do tours to the mainland from where he lived as the lone ka¯ ka¯ po¯ on Maud Island in the Marlborough Sounds. Those tours took place during the off-breeding season when he was ‘‘more well-mannered’’. Just like it was with Happy Feet, NZ was gripped by concern when
Sirocco’s transmitter failed in 2016; though unlike the hapless penguin he was found safe and sound two years later.
Another tale of unusual love was that of Thomas, a blind and bisexual goose that coupled with a swan named Henry at a Waikanae lagoon. The pair lived together for 18 years until a female swan burst onto the scene winning Henry’s heart. Thomas wasn’t to be deterred and the throuple raised 68 cygnets.
After 30 years together the goose was left heartbroken when Henry died in 2009. Thomas spent his final years at a bird sanctuary and when he died in 2018 was seen off with bagpipes in a ceremony officiated by the district’s mayor.
Our celebs haven’t just come from the water or the trees though.
An overgrown merino sheep named Shrek was discovered living in an Otago cave in 2004, having
eluded muster for about six years. Shrek’s claim to fame both here and abroad was a fleece of 27kg which he was relieved of on national television. Two and a half years later he was shorn again, this time on an iceberg. That fleece raised money for a children’s charity and the pictures of the event were worth an estimated $100 million in publicity for the export industry. The sheep went on to become the subject of a book and was taken to Parliament to meet then-prime minister Helen Clark. He died aged 16 after he was euthanised on veterinary advice.
A much more exotic animal, Kashin the elephant fittingly arrived in NZ via jumbo jet in 1972, after a bank paid for her to come to
Auckland Zoo on the proviso it was given naming rights. The bank had run a competition to name its elephant-shaped money boxes in 1964 and ‘‘Kashin’’ was the winning moniker.
The real-life pachyderm spent the next 36 years at the zoo where she wasn’t fond of exercise but enjoyed swimming in her pool. The 3.6 tonne Kashin had pigeon-toes and later in life suffered from arthritis, foot abscesses and skin ulcers. In 2009, she was put to sleep aged 40 after losing her battle with chronic health conditions. More than 18,000 people turned out for her funeral. Her companion Burma was meant to join the herd at Australia Zoo but this week that plan was scuppered when the zoo said they could no longer take her. For now she’ll remain the sole elephant in Auckland.
While Kashin won hearts with her winning personality other zoo animals are remembered for more nefarious behaviour.
Jin the otter became a media sensation when she bolted from Auckland Zoo in 2016 after digging through two walls and scaling a 1.8m fence to freedom. After 26 days on the run she was caught near Rangitoto Island, then later transferred as part of a breeding programme to Wellington Zoo where she refused to take part, never producing babies.
Jin was remembered after her 2010 death as being feisty and always ready to bite the boots of unwary keepers.
She wasn’t the only otter to make a great escape. In 2010 Clyde took off from Wellington
Zoo, holing up in the laundry of an Adelaide Rd house. He stayed there while zoo staff tried to nab him, and although he proved adept at getting the food without triggering the trap, pilchards eventually did the trick, bringing his week of freedom to an end. Despite a newly-raised enclosure fence, Clive’s escape attempts continued so he was relocated to a zoo for naughty animals in Australia.
Meanwhile, humans who’d shared a house with him printed shirts with the legend ‘‘We caught Clyde’’.
But while Clyde and Jin were determined to bust their way out, other animals have tried to bust their way in – or at least their owners have.
Eric the hamster was smuggled into Aotearoa from South Africa in a sock, his owner dousing herself in perfume to elude sniffer dogs. Eric was discovered when she took him to a pet shop saying he was a mouse without a tail. She later told authorities he was a guinea pig named Hamster.
Eric was seized when the woman’s home was searched in 2004 and was taken to Wellington Zoo where he ultimately died of a liver tumour. An arrest warrant was issued for his smuggler when she didn’t turn up to court.
Finally, NZ’s most famous animal, perhaps, might not even exist. Sightings of big cats have long troubled the South Island, the first taking place in 1977 when Frances Clark says she spied a tiger early one morning in Kaiapoi. No tiger was discovered but days later prints and droppings from what a vet described as a large cat were found near her home. A police Inspector believed someone had exercised a tiger at the beach, or it had gone there of its own free will, then left.
All up there’s been nearly 20 publicly reported sightings of big cats over the years but definitive proof still eludes us. In 2020 a hunter thought he’d settled the mystery once and for all after bagging an 11kg animal he swore was the baby of a big cat he’d seen the week before. DNA testing showed it to be just a moggy.
But whether the big cats prowl NZ the last words go to the woman who swore she saw a panther near Ashburton in 2016.
‘‘I truly believe it; these creatures walk among us.’’