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Typically, in a post-Monday test match in New Zealand, the last performance of the national rugby team is discussed. But this week, while the destruction of the Wallabies by the All Blacks was on everyone’s lips, there was another topic of conversation: the birds.
Voting began Monday on New Zealand’s fiercely fierce bird of the year election.
What began 15 years ago as a modest promotion to draw attention to New Zealand’s native birds, many of which are in danger of extinction, has become a phenomenon. Back then, you had to start up, fill out and publish a front page in NZ Forest & Bird magazine. Last year, more than 40,000 votes were cast online.
As always, the names of the heavyweights are ringing. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is said to be backing the black petrel again this year. “He calls him Bogan Bird because he wears black,” says Laura Keown, spokesperson for Bird of the Year 2020.
“It is a great bird because it faces many threats. Due to their feeding habits, commercial and recreational fishermen catch it as bycatch ”.
There have been scandals and accusations of vote rigging. In 2008, the successful campaign to elect the kakapo was accused by the takahe of accepting undeclared donations “from wealthy migratory birds living in Monaco.”
Even the non-kiwis get hooked. “I am very happy that I followed enough New Zealanders to start watching #BirdsofYear posts on my timeline, ”Mark Bessey, a Santa Barbara-based software writer, wrote on Twitter. “They are bringing much needed joy (and very strange looking birds) to my Twitter experience.”
The defending champion, the Hoiho, lives and breeds only in New Zealand. Their numbers have been going downhill for 30 years and in 2019, only 165 nests were located.
In the Maori language, hoiho means ‘noisy’, also a fitting description of the debate on social media over which bird should triumph.
When Helen Clark, the country’s former prime minister, declared a few elections ago that she had voted for Hoiho, not everyone was excited.
“Helen, do you know partner? Not gannets? Michelle Langstone, gannet campaign manager and inventor of the hashtag, answered incredulously. #dammitgannet. “Gannets are magnificent! This is very disappointing. “
Langstone, writer, actor, chip fan,
He won’t be running the gannet campaign this time, but Langstone is squarely in his corner. Add it to the painful nature of politics. “I’m emotionally drained, and every election gives me hives,” she recently declared on Twitter.
Pressed further, Langstone explained to The Guardian: “And I’ve come to realize that no one will vote for gannets, so I love them on my own.”
She is urging bettors to cast their five votes for seabirds that she says are overlooked in popularity contests, because they are mostly offshore, smell and don’t have fancy plumage, and many of they are not. in danger of extinction. But they are so heroic. “
Keown attributes the popularity of the competition to New Zealand’s sense of humor. “They enjoy frivolity, fun.”
But there is a serious side to the proceedings. Approximately 75% of land birds and 90% of sea birds are considered threatened or endangered. Their habitats are being destroyed or degraded by introduced predators, pollution, human development, and climate change.
Recent birds of the year include the wood pigeon, the Kererū, in its dreamy green, copper, and white coat, that alpine thief, the Kea (it’ll steal your lunch and your boot laces), and the Forrest Gump of the skies, the bar. -Guess what, they just returned to New Zealand from Siberia, a nonstop flight of about 12,000 kilometers.
No previous winner has ever won again. There are no rules against it, Keown says. “I think it is the heart of New Zealanders who want to share the love.”
Voting closes on November 15.
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