New Zealand's annual bird election is contested by cheeky parrots, sweet songbirds, and cute, puffball robins. This year's winner is a mysterious falcon that wouldn't think twice about eating them. Karearea, the Indigenous Maori name for the New Zealand falcon, was crowned Bird of the Year on Monday, reports the AP. 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.
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."
This year 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, Oliver's bird, the puteketeke or Australasian crested grebe, won in a 290,000-vote landslide. Other controversies have struck the poll. In 2021, there was mild uproar when a bat won the title, despite not being a bird.
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The majestic karearea can fly at speeds of more than 124mph and swoops to capture its prey, often smaller birds. The endemic species is threatened in New Zealand, vulnerable to electrocution on wires and loss of their forest habitats. "They're a mysterious bird and that's partly because they're cryptic, they're often well-hidden," said Phil Bradfield, a trustee of Karearea Falcon Trust in Marlborough. Bradfield said the "fast and sneaky and very special" raptor was a deserving Bird of the Year winner.
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