A pūteketeke Australasian crested grebe on a nest at Te Anau.
Photo: Supplied / Oscar Thomas
With a majority of the votes, the pūteketeke Australasian crested grebe has been topped Bird of the Century.
There was fierce competitors for the title, that even noticed TAHI and RNZ presenter Evie Orpe change into embroiled in an ornithological stoush with US talkshow host John Oliver.
Oliver’s marketing campaign noticed advertisements in Paris, Mumbai, Tokyo and London, and flying a banner over Ipanema seaside in Brazil. As if protection on his personal present Last Week Tonight wasn’t sufficient, he even made an look on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in full-on grebe garb.
His marketing campaign led to the system crashing.
Oliver’s choose? The successful hen, the pūteketeke.
“Pūteketeke started as an outdoor contender for Bird of the Century however was catapulted to the highest spot because of its distinctive seems to be, lovely parenting model, and propensity for puking,” Forest and Bird chief govt Nicola Toki mentioned.
“We’re not stunned these charming traits caught the attention of an influential hen fanatic with an enormous following.”
“John Oliver’s want for a landslide victory did come true,” Forest and Bird’s Ellen Rykers informed Morning Report.
It may solely be a superb factor that Oliver has ignited enormous dialog about our native birds, Rykers mentioned.
The North Island brown kiwi was in second place and the kea was third.
New Zealanders had been eager to defend their competitors and flocked to vote. There was a document 350,000+ verified votes from 195 nations this yr, surpassing the earlier document of 56,733 verified votes.
Forty-five of this yr’s verifed votes had been underneath the title John Oliver, with only one vote made for the fairy tern, the remaining unsurprisingly had been for the pūteketeke.
Thousands of fraudulent votes had been discounted. One person even voted 40,000 instances for the tawaki piki toka jap rockhopper penguin.
A shot from US comic John Oliver’s section on New Zealand’s Bird of the Year on 5 November 2023.
Photo: Screengrab
With its burnt orange mullet, placing plumage and propensity for puking, the pūteketeke is clasified as ‘nationally vulnerable’. There are regarded as fewer than 1000 of them in Aotearoa, up from simply 200 within the Eighties.
Their restoration is partly because of efforts just like the Lake Wānaka Grebe Project, after Forest and Bird member John Darby constructed a floating nesting platform ten years in the past.
More than 80 p.c of native birds are on the threatened species checklist.
“Pending cuts to the Department of Conservation, the company tasked with defending these taonga underneath risk, are an enormous fear. The world is watching us and the way we glance after our birds,” Toki mentioned.
A pair of pūteketeke Australasian crested grebe.
Photo: Supplied / Leanne Buchan Photography
The high 10 winners:
- Australasian crested grebe – pūteketeke: 290,374 votes
- North Island brown kiwi: 12,904 votes
- Kea: 12,060 votes
- Kākāpō: 10,889 votes
- Fantail: 7857 votes
- Eastern rockhopper penguin:6763 votes
- Black robin: 6753 votes
- Huia: 6467 votes
- Tūī: 6457 votes
- Takahē: 6292 votes
