Kilda.
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. International campaigns, a Russian vote tampering scandal and an impostor taking the win. There's one election that New Zealanders have always taken very seriously. No, it doesn't involve politicians or even human beings. For two decades, the public has poured over more than eighty native birds and one controversial bat to Crown Bird of the Year.
The fun is meant to.
Highlight our native fauna and the fact that New Zealand has one of the highest rates of threatened species in the world today. On the Front Page, Forest and Bird Chief Executive Nicola Tokyo is with us to take us through the history and the.
Future of the competition and why we should care. Taking us back twenty.
Years ago, what's the genesis for petting our native birds against each other?
Like?
How did this come about?
Yeah, it's such a cool story.
So essentially, and I remember this, I just didn't remember it was twenty years ago. So there was a time, a very controversial time in our country that almost divided the nation.
And that it was in two thousand.
And five when Aaron zed started talking about removing the bird call from Morning Report, and I think they thought that was probably a really straightforward thing to do. And then the day that they announced it, I think by the time by lunchtime, they'd had something like sixteen hundred emails from you know, incensed New Zealanders about how you could possibly take away, you know, this crucial institution of
people's mornings. And so off the back of that, a previous employee from Forest and Bird started thinking, actually, this is great, and there were one or two other countries that had run similar poles about people picking their favorite birds, and so Michael Sabo took it upon himself to look into that and to kick it in the kick it in the gea for New Zealand and it just grew from there. So, you know, it was an opportunity that Forest and Beird pounced on at the time.
And it started with a little email pole.
That went out to everyone and you know, not particularly heavily populated in terms of the responses. It probably the zenith of it was the three hundred and fifty thousand votes or thereabouts for the twenty twenty three which was the Putiki Teki and now we rough enough get sort of between fifteen sixty thousand votes from New Zealanders. And you know, it's interesting, isn't it, Because people are finding it difficult to connect with elections in general, with respect
to local government and central government elections. But for whatever reason, this tackles people and they want to be engaged and involved in us.
So over the years, Bird of the Year has faced multiple voting scandals. In twenty nineteen, there was even some speculation around a Russian hacking scandal.
Tell me about that.
Oh, look, we have had so many.
I mean every year there's a controversy of some description. And yes, there was potentially the challenge with the Russian the Russian hacking of our election process.
We've actually we had to get really.
Rigorous with our kind of voting protocols.
We had the.
Potential of the Russian hack. We had one year a couple of teenagers got really excited about a particular species of bird and just voted repeatedly and kept cranking up the votes at a time when we really didn't have the controls in place to be able to do anything about it, and so we were having to kind of plead with people to try and follow the rules, and yeah, we've also had the odd hard case thing happen.
Of course, we had more than three hundred thousand.
Votes the year that the Pertiki Tiki won thanks to John Oliver and last week tonight and we had someone repeatedly voting for I think the sneers crested penguin in naming it John Oliver. So there's always controversy and it's always a lot of fun.
Yeah, speaking on John Oliver, he launched that worldwide campaign back in that was twenty twenty three, right backing the Teki Teki.
His campaign team put.
Up billboards in Mumbai, Tokyo, Paris, London, Brazil and Wisconsin, and the Techi Techi one obviously by an absolute landslide.
What was having that global attention.
Like, it's exhausting for starters.
So there were three of US staff members at for US and Dude who basically just did a rolling mall of interviews with mostly international media for weeks on end in the lead up to particularly while John Oliver was promoting it on his show with his giant pu Tiki Tiki puppet. As well as obviously that billboards he put up all over the world turning up I think on Jimmy Fallon's show, dressed as a putiki tiki, and so the interest just grew and reached this sort of beaver pitch.
Yes, so it's an interesting bird. There's only a thousand of them in New Zealand, so I think it's a fine candidate for Bird of the Central.
If you contact this organization running this contest before you start. Came.
We did.
We did, Yeah, we did just bring that. We said to them, would it be okay if we were campaign managers for a bird? They said, yes, go for it, And I don't think they understood quite what they were unleashing when they said go for it.
Okay.
It was fantastic, end really described so not just that that year was obviously one out of the box, and fantastic that him and his team wanted to be involved in promoting what we consider.
On our list is one about underbirds.
So you know, birds who may not necessarily get the same kind of a teach in TLC and love that a co couple or you know what some of the
better known birds might have. But every year Bird of the Year gets picked up by you know, the guy Smithsonian where you know, it gets reported all over the world where I'm still reeling from the fact that last year the hohyhaul won, which is obviously one of New Zealand's iconic speaks of penguin, something we all hold dear and love on the five dollar note, and some international media described it as you know that a smelly penguin
had won this important contest. So no, look, it is fantastic because what we've realized over twenty years is that New Zealanders, and we already know this, they really care about our native wildlife and particularly our birds, which are such a difining characteristic of our nature in New Zealand.
Did part of our national identity.
Well, that's perhaps why it was so controversial the twenty twenty one winner, the long tailed bat one, despite not being a bird. Was the organization prepared for the backlash it received about that decision.
Ah, look, I think we knew that it was going to create, you know, consternation.
It stilled us. People still give.
Me a hard time about what about that time?
A bat one bird of the year, And it is.
Really important because the thing about New Zealand's wildlife is New Zealand is a land without teeth. Right, So we don't have terrestrial mammals in this country except for two tiny species of bat about the size of you know, their bodies are about the size of my thumb, and they are in as much trouble as our bird life because of introduced predators like stoats and rats and cats
and birds and all of that stuff. So it's still a great way to raise awareness of the things that you know, forest and bird is trying to protect and give nature a voice about. And if we just nod over to Tao Mardi, a bat is encapsulated in the word manu, which means which we consider the word for bird as something that flights, right, so we reckon.
We got away with it.
It was a wonderful way to engage the New Zealand public. Something that wound ever run up.
A bit well argue of if there's only two species of bat, they alternate that of the year each each couple of years, right, yeah, I.
Mean, you know, who knows there's still potentially room for the other species of bat again in there.
I mean that's.
Interesting, right, because the imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So I know that the entomological Society have started Bug of the Year. You know, there have been other countries conservation organizations getting in touch with us and talking to us about how they might do Bird of the Year
and their respective countries. But there is just something about the way that New Zealanders connect with and identify with our native wildlife and that's important to us, right because eighty percent of our birds of our land birds here in New Zealand are on the Critain Species list, are
in trouble and need our help. And so one of the biggest challenges that I have found in my career and conservation is trying to stories about our native wildlife in such a way that everybody understands that they're special and worth looking after, and that they're in trouble and that if we look, you know, if we take particular actions, we can do something about it. And that's a hard conservation is a hard story to sell because often it's things are really bad.
And so what Bird of the Year it enables us.
To do is focus on the joy and the love that people have for these birds and let them get super creative about how they're promoting them. I've been looking at some of the online campaigning that is already going on and having a week giggle with my morning coffee when I see what the various campaign managers are up to.
Well, if you do have, say a major US talk show host promoting one bird, the result is always going to be obvious.
Right Does that take the fun out of it? Or is it just the way politics works?
Well, I mean there are always scandals in politics.
Aren't there.
And you know, we had a bit of feedback at the time about oh, but this isn't fair because you know, sort of taking away from the New Zealand campaigns working hard on their birds. All's fear and love and bird war, I say. And it did a couple of things. So the with respect to the Puteki Techi, you know, and no one could compete with the kind of reach that John Oliver has and the resources he had at his disposal to be able to you know, put billboards up
in the biggest cities all over the world. But it also really kicked that kind of Kiwi spirit into gear and particularly for the likes of the campaign managers for Kiwe, who then took it upon themselves to rise to the challenge and try and secure more votes as a counter to you know, the unwanted American influence at the time,
so that that was quite fun. But you know, there's no harm in having one hundred people from one hundred and ninety five countries around the world engaging in a story about the things that make New Zealand so special.
Now And another controversy, I think there have been two birds that have won twice.
Should they be able to still compete?
Yes, and so that with that creants its own challenges. So we Carackapool has won twice, Boyho, I think has also won twice, last year being the second time around, and we took Carackopol out of the race because people when they think about our birds, you know, we don't have lions, tigers and beers or a panda here in New Zealand, but probably our charismatic megaphore tend to be things like Cackapool.
So we gave kakapoul a.
Breather a few years ago and people people didn't like that either. But what has been fantastic to see this year are the married ways that people are getting involved and we've been working really hard to find ways to amplify the fun of Bird of the Year. So there's like workplace packs that workplaces can download and use to run their own bird at the year kind of activities and their offices we've got. I don't know if you have taken upon yourself to try birdle dot.
Nz in yet, but it's going real fun.
Yeah, it's so much fun right and.
At a time in our society, both here in New Zealand and beyond, we are facing a biodiversity crisis a climate crisis, and the two of those things running up against each other.
It can feel quite overwhelming, and.
I know for me and my staff it is quite hard to kind of find that kind of thing that sparks joy in the face of quite significant challenges. And so, you know, being able to lead people to some fun stuff I think is also what inspires action because we're people are you know, when people engage in something and they like it and it's fun, they want to know more and they want to and then once they want to know more, they want to do more. And that's been the real key.
Have you had evidence of that, is all this raising awareness actually contributing to more donations or.
Yeah, so in.
That the donation total the year that John Oliver hijacked the competition forrest and Bird received over one million dollars in donations just from Bird of the Year, so, you know, and we have really neat supportive business partners who love to get involved in supporting Bird.
Of the Year end.
And that's the other thing too, like our business partners when they're doing it. So you know, we have the likes of Metal Bird, and they make a Metal Bird Bird of the Year basically the day that the birds announced. So I went to their office a couple of years ago and they announced the bird and they were already sketching out the design and about to reduce. You know,
the thing we have blunt umbrellers. We have a number of companies very much involved in this, but they're not they're in it the same way that people get involved in the Bird of Year voting process, because genuinely those
businesses love it, they love being part of it. And obviously we are really grateful for the support because it enables us to go out and do more, and it certainly inspires people who might have just been conservation adjacent, who get drawn into the Bird of the Year drama and fun and controversy and suddenly become much more interested in and want to take action.
And you're so mentioned a lack of campaign managers is one of the reasons the full number of species isn't available on the list. Can you tell us a little bit about these campaign managers, like who are they?
Are they self appointed? What makes a good campaign manager?
Yeah, so it varies from year to year. But one thing we're really proud of this year is that one hundred percent of the birds that are up for election for voting, you know, in the poll I have a campaign manager this year, so that's a first for us. That kind of tells us a bit more about how the popularity of Bird of the Year is just growing
over the twenty years that it has been around. And they campaign managers a volunteer, They get in touch with us, they put their name forward to be associated with a particular bird. Sometimes they are organizations or businesses, you know. Sometimes they're towns like Dunedin basically as a city through the various museums and you know the key players Indonedan all got together and really pushed hall last year, which
probably contributed a lot to its success. We've had politicians I was, I got in touch with Christopher Luxen's off for example before he so when he was still in opposition about it. So we've had a number of politicians involved over many, many years, and you know Cinder and durn Hall and Clark.
Chris Reluxon put his name forward.
It is to promote the riebill, which is a little river bird in quite a lot of trouble found in braided rivers down here, mostly in the South Island, and travels migrants around the country. But they are really really special birds and they're the only bird in the world with a beak that bends to the right, that curves
to the right. And I thought this is a sitter for the National Party right so, and at the time christpher Luxon did a very clever video about throwing his weight in behind the rie Bill.
And I appreciate while this may disappoint many of our supporters, I do this with a very heavy heart, knowing the consequences or the full weight of my decision, because today I announce that I am supporting the rye Bill for Bird of the Year twenty twenty two.
So, you know, we've had all kinds of people and it might they might be a student, they might just be someone who's really passionate about a particular bird, and they get involved and we work with them and they do neat meat with the best thing that they do and the thing that everybody loves about this competition, other online memes and reels, and you know, they get very committed to their campaigns and we love them for it.
As they should.
Of course, I suppose there's probably the birds that always end up in like the top four or top three or something, right, So the obvious ones Karkapor you mentioned kia Kiwi, of course, and the penguins do all right as well.
Are there any birds that just always receive the lowest votes and why is that?
Are they the least cute or are they the ugliest or the the least lesser known?
I think often it is lesser known. And so you know, one of the things that we love in value about Bird of the Year is that it creates conversations all up and down the country about you know, our various bird species. And the challenge, of course, in this busy world that we live in is New Zealanders on the one hand, feel very connected to our native wildlife, and on the other hand, I think probably don't know a lot about it.
You know, and and one of.
The challenges we have as a conservation organization is in New Zealand we have the highest proportion of threatened species in the world.
Many of those obviously are birds.
We've already lost many, many species of birds to extinction in this country because of kind of pess predator's habitat loss.
Et cetera.
And so we want to raise awareness of those underbirds in particular. And you know, David and Bruh often talks about the fact that people won't care about what they haven't experienced, and experiencing it doesn't mean you have to go out into a national park somewhere and discover these birds for yourself. You might experience these birds by learning more about them through you through this competition and falling a bit in love with the things you didn't know about.
And once you experience them, you start to love them. Once you love them, you want to care about them, So you might put a trap up in.
Your backyard, et cetera.
You might start contributing to your local conservation project.
Thank you so much for joining us, Nikola, thanks for having me.
That's Itid for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzadherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Jane Ye and Richard Martin, who is also our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or where wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.