A raptor with no qualms about eating its opponents wins New Zealands annual bird election
New Zealand’s annual bird election is contested by cheeky parrots, sweet songbirds and cute, puffball robins.This year’s winner was a mysterious falcon that wouldn’t think twice about eating them.Kārearea, the Indigenous Māori name for the New Zealand falcon, was crowned Bird of the Year on Monday.
But the annual poll, run by conservation group Forest & Bird, is no ordinary online vote.The fiercely fought election sees volunteer (human) campaign managers apply to stump for their favorite bird.Feathers fly as avian enthusiasts seek to sway the public through meme battles, trash-talking poster campaigns and dance routines performed in bird costumes.“Bird of the Year has grown from a simple email poll in 2005 to a hotly contested cultural moment,” said Forest & Bird Chief Executive Nicola Toki.
“Behind the memes and mayhem is a serious message.”The contest draws attention to New Zealand’s native bird species, with 80% designated as being in trouble to some degree.But it attracts passionate fandom because New Zealanders are bird-obsessed.In a country with no native land mammals except for two species of bat, birds reign supreme.
They appear in art, on jewelry, in schoolchildren’s songs, and in the name New Zealanders are known by abroad, “kiwis.”Beloved birds include alpine parrots that harass tourists and pigeons which get so drunk on berries that they sometimes fall out of trees.“This is not a land of lions, tigers and bears,” said Toki.“The birds here are weird and wonderful and not what you would expect to see perhaps in other countries.”The first contest two decades ago attracted fewer than 900 votes.
More than 75,000 people in the country of 5 million cast ballots this year.It was the highest-ever voter turnout apart from an episode when Last Week Tonight host John Oliver volunteered as a campaign manager in 2023, prompting mostly joking accusations from New Zealanders of American interference.Perhaps inevitably, Oli...