Speaker 1: Kilda.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. International campaigns,
Speaker 2: a Russian vote tampering scandal and an impostor taking the win.
Speaker 2: There's one election that New Zealanders have always taken very seriously. No,
Speaker 2: it doesn't involve politicians or even human beings. For two decades,
Speaker 2: the public has poured over more than eighty native birds
Speaker 2: and one controversial bat to Crown Bird of the Year.
Speaker 3: The fun is meant to.
Speaker 2: Highlight our native fauna and the fact that New Zealand
Speaker 2: has one of the highest rates of threatened species in
Speaker 2: the world today. On the Front Page, Forest and Bird
Speaker 2: Chief Executive Nicola Tokyo is with us to take us
Speaker 2: through the history and the.
Speaker 3: Future of the competition and why we should care. Taking
Speaker 3: us back twenty.
Speaker 2: Years ago, what's the genesis for petting our native birds
Speaker 2: against each other?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: How did this come about?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's such a cool story.
Speaker 1: So essentially, and I remember this, I just didn't remember
Speaker 1: it was twenty years ago. So there was a time,
Speaker 1: a very controversial time in our country that almost divided
Speaker 1: the nation.
Speaker 4: And that it was in two thousand.
Speaker 1: And five when Aaron zed started talking about removing the
Speaker 1: bird call from Morning Report, and I think they thought
Speaker 1: that was probably a really straightforward thing to do. And
Speaker 1: then the day that they announced it, I think by
Speaker 1: the time by lunchtime, they'd had something like sixteen hundred
Speaker 1: emails from you know, incensed New Zealanders about how you
Speaker 1: could possibly take away, you know, this crucial institution of
Speaker 1: people's mornings. And so off the back of that, a
Speaker 1: previous employee from Forest and Bird started thinking, actually, this
Speaker 1: is great, and there were one or two other countries
Speaker 1: that had run similar poles about people picking their favorite birds,
Speaker 1: and so Michael Sabo took it upon himself to look
Speaker 1: into that and to kick it in the kick it
Speaker 1: in the gea for New Zealand and it just grew
Speaker 1: from there. So, you know, it was an opportunity that
Speaker 1: Forest and Beird pounced on at the time.
Speaker 4: And it started with a little email pole.
Speaker 1: That went out to everyone and you know, not particularly
Speaker 1: heavily populated in terms of the responses. It probably the
Speaker 1: zenith of it was the three hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 1: votes or thereabouts for the twenty twenty three which was
Speaker 1: the Putiki Teki and now we rough enough get sort
Speaker 1: of between fifteen sixty thousand votes from New Zealanders. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's interesting, isn't it, Because people are finding
Speaker 1: it difficult to connect with elections in general, with respect
Speaker 1: to local government and central government elections. But for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: this tackles people and they want to be engaged and
Speaker 1: involved in us.
Speaker 2: So over the years, Bird of the Year has faced
Speaker 2: multiple voting scandals. In twenty nineteen, there was even some
Speaker 2: speculation around a Russian hacking scandal.
Speaker 3: Tell me about that.
Speaker 4: Oh, look, we have had so many.
Speaker 1: I mean every year there's a controversy of some description.
Speaker 1: And yes, there was potentially the challenge with the Russian
Speaker 1: the Russian hacking of our election process.
Speaker 4: We've actually we had to get really.
Speaker 1: Rigorous with our kind of voting protocols.
Speaker 4: We had the.
Speaker 1: Potential of the Russian hack. We had one year a
Speaker 1: couple of teenagers got really excited about a particular species
Speaker 1: of bird and just voted repeatedly and kept cranking up
Speaker 1: the votes at a time when we really didn't have
Speaker 1: the controls in place to be able to do anything
Speaker 1: about it, and so we were having to kind of
Speaker 1: plead with people to try and follow the rules, and yeah,
Speaker 1: we've also had the odd hard case thing happen.
Speaker 4: Of course, we had more than three hundred thousand.
Speaker 1: Votes the year that the Pertiki Tiki won thanks to
Speaker 1: John Oliver and last week tonight and we had someone
Speaker 1: repeatedly voting for I think the sneers crested penguin in
Speaker 1: naming it John Oliver. So there's always controversy and it's
Speaker 1: always a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, speaking on John Oliver, he launched that worldwide campaign
Speaker 2: back in that was twenty twenty three, right backing the
Speaker 2: Teki Teki.
Speaker 3: His campaign team put.
Speaker 2: Up billboards in Mumbai, Tokyo, Paris, London, Brazil and Wisconsin,
Speaker 2: and the Techi Techi one obviously by an absolute landslide.
Speaker 3: What was having that global attention.
Speaker 4: Like, it's exhausting for starters.
Speaker 1: So there were three of US staff members at for
Speaker 1: US and Dude who basically just did a rolling mall
Speaker 1: of interviews with mostly international media for weeks on end
Speaker 1: in the lead up to particularly while John Oliver was
Speaker 1: promoting it on his show with his giant pu Tiki
Speaker 1: Tiki puppet. As well as obviously that billboards he put
Speaker 1: up all over the world turning up I think on
Speaker 1: Jimmy Fallon's show, dressed as a putiki tiki, and so
Speaker 1: the interest just grew and reached this sort of beaver pitch.
Speaker 5: Yes, so it's an interesting bird. There's only a thousand
Speaker 5: of them in New Zealand, so I think it's a
Speaker 5: fine candidate for Bird of the Central.
Speaker 1: If you contact this organization running this contest before you start. Came.
Speaker 3: We did.
Speaker 5: We did, Yeah, we did just bring that. We said
Speaker 5: to them, would it be okay if we were campaign
Speaker 5: managers for a bird? They said, yes, go for it,
Speaker 5: And I don't think they understood quite what they were
Speaker 5: unleashing when they said go for it.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: It was fantastic, end really described so not just that
Speaker 1: that year was obviously one out of the box, and
Speaker 1: fantastic that him and his team wanted to be involved
Speaker 1: in promoting what we consider.
Speaker 4: On our list is one about underbirds.
Speaker 1: So you know, birds who may not necessarily get the
Speaker 1: same kind of a teach in TLC and love that
Speaker 1: a co couple or you know what some of the
Speaker 1: better known birds might have. But every year Bird of
Speaker 1: the Year gets picked up by you know, the guy
Speaker 1: Smithsonian where you know, it gets reported all over the
Speaker 1: world where I'm still reeling from the fact that last
Speaker 1: year the hohyhaul won, which is obviously one of New
Speaker 1: Zealand's iconic speaks of penguin, something we all hold dear
Speaker 1: and love on the five dollar note, and some international
Speaker 1: media described it as you know that a smelly penguin
Speaker 1: had won this important contest. So no, look, it is
Speaker 1: fantastic because what we've realized over twenty years is that
Speaker 1: New Zealanders, and we already know this, they really care
Speaker 1: about our native wildlife and particularly our birds, which are
Speaker 1: such a difining characteristic of our nature in New Zealand.
Speaker 4: Did part of our national identity.
Speaker 2: Well, that's perhaps why it was so controversial the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one winner, the long tailed bat one, despite not
Speaker 2: being a bird. Was the organization prepared for the backlash
Speaker 2: it received about that decision.
Speaker 1: Ah, look, I think we knew that it was going
Speaker 1: to create, you know, consternation.
Speaker 4: It stilled us. People still give.
Speaker 1: Me a hard time about what about that time?
Speaker 4: A bat one bird of the year, And it is.
Speaker 1: Really important because the thing about New Zealand's wildlife is
Speaker 1: New Zealand is a land without teeth. Right, So we
Speaker 1: don't have terrestrial mammals in this country except for two
Speaker 1: tiny species of bat about the size of you know,
Speaker 1: their bodies are about the size of my thumb, and
Speaker 1: they are in as much trouble as our bird life
Speaker 1: because of introduced predators like stoats and rats and cats
Speaker 1: and birds and all of that stuff. So it's still
Speaker 1: a great way to raise awareness of the things that
Speaker 1: you know, forest and bird is trying to protect and
Speaker 1: give nature a voice about. And if we just nod
Speaker 1: over to Tao Mardi, a bat is encapsulated in the
Speaker 1: word manu, which means which we consider the word for
Speaker 1: bird as something that flights, right, so we reckon.
Speaker 4: We got away with it.
Speaker 1: It was a wonderful way to engage the New Zealand public.
Speaker 1: Something that wound ever run up.
Speaker 2: A bit well argue of if there's only two species
Speaker 2: of bat, they alternate that of the year each each
Speaker 2: couple of years, right, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, you know, who knows there's still potentially room for
Speaker 1: the other species of bat again in there.
Speaker 3: I mean that's.
Speaker 1: Interesting, right, because the imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Speaker 1: So I know that the entomological Society have started Bug
Speaker 1: of the Year. You know, there have been other countries
Speaker 1: conservation organizations getting in touch with us and talking to
Speaker 1: us about how they might do Bird of the Year
Speaker 1: and their respective countries. But there is just something about
Speaker 1: the way that New Zealanders connect with and identify with
Speaker 1: our native wildlife and that's important to us, right because
Speaker 1: eighty percent of our birds of our land birds here
Speaker 1: in New Zealand are on the Critain Species list, are
Speaker 1: in trouble and need our help. And so one of
Speaker 1: the biggest challenges that I have found in my career
Speaker 1: and conservation is trying to stories about our native wildlife
Speaker 1: in such a way that everybody understands that they're special
Speaker 1: and worth looking after, and that they're in trouble and
Speaker 1: that if we look, you know, if we take particular actions,
Speaker 1: we can do something about it. And that's a hard
Speaker 1: conservation is a hard story to sell because often it's
Speaker 1: things are really bad.
Speaker 4: And so what Bird of the Year it enables us.
Speaker 1: To do is focus on the joy and the love
Speaker 1: that people have for these birds and let them get
Speaker 1: super creative about how they're promoting them. I've been looking
Speaker 1: at some of the online campaigning that is already going
Speaker 1: on and having a week giggle with my morning coffee
Speaker 1: when I see what the various campaign managers are up to.
Speaker 2: Well, if you do have, say a major US talk
Speaker 2: show host promoting one bird, the result is always going
Speaker 2: to be obvious.
Speaker 3: Right Does that take the fun out of it? Or
Speaker 3: is it just the way politics works?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean there are always scandals in politics.
Speaker 4: Aren't there.
Speaker 1: And you know, we had a bit of feedback at
Speaker 1: the time about oh, but this isn't fair because you know,
Speaker 1: sort of taking away from the New Zealand campaigns working
Speaker 1: hard on their birds. All's fear and love and bird war,
Speaker 1: I say. And it did a couple of things. So
Speaker 1: the with respect to the Puteki Techi, you know, and
Speaker 1: no one could compete with the kind of reach that
Speaker 1: John Oliver has and the resources he had at his
Speaker 1: disposal to be able to you know, put billboards up
Speaker 1: in the biggest cities all over the world. But it
Speaker 1: also really kicked that kind of Kiwi spirit into gear
Speaker 1: and particularly for the likes of the campaign managers for Kiwe,
Speaker 1: who then took it upon themselves to rise to the
Speaker 1: challenge and try and secure more votes as a counter
Speaker 1: to you know, the unwanted American influence at the time,
Speaker 1: so that that was quite fun. But you know, there's
Speaker 1: no harm in having one hundred people from one hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety five countries around the world engaging in a
Speaker 1: story about the things that make New Zealand so special.
Speaker 2: Now And another controversy, I think there have been two
Speaker 2: birds that have won twice.
Speaker 3: Should they be able to still compete?
Speaker 1: Yes, and so that with that creants its own challenges.
Speaker 1: So we Carackapool has won twice, Boyho, I think has
Speaker 1: also won twice, last year being the second time around,
Speaker 1: and we took Carackopol out of the race because people
Speaker 1: when they think about our birds, you know, we don't
Speaker 1: have lions, tigers and beers or a panda here in
Speaker 1: New Zealand, but probably our charismatic megaphore tend to be
Speaker 1: things like Cackapool.
Speaker 4: So we gave kakapoul a.
Speaker 1: Breather a few years ago and people people didn't like
Speaker 1: that either. But what has been fantastic to see this
Speaker 1: year are the married ways that people are getting involved
Speaker 1: and we've been working really hard to find ways to
Speaker 1: amplify the fun of Bird of the Year. So there's
Speaker 1: like workplace packs that workplaces can download and use to
Speaker 1: run their own bird at the year kind of activities
Speaker 1: and their offices we've got. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: have taken upon yourself to try birdle dot.
Speaker 3: Nz in yet, but it's going real fun.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's so much fun right and.
Speaker 1: At a time in our society, both here in New
Speaker 1: Zealand and beyond, we are facing a biodiversity crisis a
Speaker 1: climate crisis, and the two of those things running up
Speaker 1: against each other.
Speaker 4: It can feel quite overwhelming, and.
Speaker 1: I know for me and my staff it is quite
Speaker 1: hard to kind of find that kind of thing that
Speaker 1: sparks joy in the face of quite significant challenges. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, being able to lead people to some fun
Speaker 1: stuff I think is also what inspires action because we're
Speaker 1: people are you know, when people engage in something and
Speaker 1: they like it and it's fun, they want to know
Speaker 1: more and they want to and then once they want
Speaker 1: to know more, they want to do more. And that's
Speaker 1: been the real key.
Speaker 2: Have you had evidence of that, is all this raising
Speaker 2: awareness actually contributing to more donations or.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so in.
Speaker 1: That the donation total the year that John Oliver hijacked
Speaker 1: the competition forrest and Bird received over one million dollars
Speaker 1: in donations just from Bird of the Year, so, you know,
Speaker 1: and we have really neat supportive business partners who love
Speaker 1: to get involved in supporting Bird.
Speaker 4: Of the Year end.
Speaker 1: And that's the other thing too, like our business partners
Speaker 1: when they're doing it. So you know, we have the
Speaker 1: likes of Metal Bird, and they make a Metal Bird
Speaker 1: Bird of the Year basically the day that the birds announced.
Speaker 1: So I went to their office a couple of years
Speaker 1: ago and they announced the bird and they were already
Speaker 1: sketching out the design and about to reduce. You know,
Speaker 1: the thing we have blunt umbrellers. We have a number
Speaker 1: of companies very much involved in this, but they're not
Speaker 1: they're in it the same way that people get involved
Speaker 1: in the Bird of Year voting process, because genuinely those
Speaker 1: businesses love it, they love being part of it. And
Speaker 1: obviously we are really grateful for the support because it
Speaker 1: enables us to go out and do more, and it
Speaker 1: certainly inspires people who might have just been conservation adjacent,
Speaker 1: who get drawn into the Bird of the Year drama
Speaker 1: and fun and controversy and suddenly become much more interested
Speaker 1: in and want to take action.
Speaker 2: And you're so mentioned a lack of campaign managers is
Speaker 2: one of the reasons the full number of species isn't
Speaker 2: available on the list. Can you tell us a little
Speaker 2: bit about these campaign managers, like who are they?
Speaker 3: Are they self appointed? What makes a good campaign manager?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it varies from year to year. But one
Speaker 1: thing we're really proud of this year is that one
Speaker 1: hundred percent of the birds that are up for election
Speaker 1: for voting, you know, in the poll I have a
Speaker 1: campaign manager this year, so that's a first for us.
Speaker 1: That kind of tells us a bit more about how
Speaker 1: the popularity of Bird of the Year is just growing
Speaker 1: over the twenty years that it has been around. And
Speaker 1: they campaign managers a volunteer, They get in touch with us,
Speaker 1: they put their name forward to be associated with a
Speaker 1: particular bird. Sometimes they are organizations or businesses, you know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they're towns like Dunedin basically as a city through
Speaker 1: the various museums and you know the key players Indonedan
Speaker 1: all got together and really pushed hall last year, which
Speaker 1: probably contributed a lot to its success. We've had politicians
Speaker 1: I was, I got in touch with Christopher Luxen's off
Speaker 1: for example before he so when he was still in
Speaker 1: opposition about it. So we've had a number of politicians
Speaker 1: involved over many, many years, and you know Cinder and
Speaker 1: durn Hall and Clark.
Speaker 4: Chris Reluxon put his name forward.
Speaker 1: It is to promote the riebill, which is a little
Speaker 1: river bird in quite a lot of trouble found in
Speaker 1: braided rivers down here, mostly in the South Island, and
Speaker 1: travels migrants around the country. But they are really really
Speaker 1: special birds and they're the only bird in the world
Speaker 1: with a beak that bends to the right, that curves
Speaker 1: to the right. And I thought this is a sitter
Speaker 1: for the National Party right so, and at the time
Speaker 1: christpher Luxon did a very clever video about throwing his
Speaker 1: weight in behind the rie Bill.
Speaker 6: And I appreciate while this may disappoint many of our supporters,
Speaker 6: I do this with a very heavy heart, knowing the
Speaker 6: consequences or the full weight of my decision, because today
Speaker 6: I announce that I am supporting the rye Bill for
Speaker 6: Bird of the Year twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: So, you know, we've had all kinds of people and
Speaker 1: it might they might be a student, they might just
Speaker 1: be someone who's really passionate about a particular bird, and
Speaker 1: they get involved and we work with them and they
Speaker 1: do neat meat with the best thing that they do
Speaker 1: and the thing that everybody loves about this competition, other
Speaker 1: online memes and reels, and you know, they get very
Speaker 1: committed to their campaigns and we love them for it.
Speaker 3: As they should.
Speaker 2: Of course, I suppose there's probably the birds that always
Speaker 2: end up in like the top four or top three
Speaker 2: or something, right, So the obvious ones Karkapor you mentioned
Speaker 2: kia Kiwi, of course, and the penguins do all right
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 3: Are there any birds that just always receive the lowest
Speaker 3: votes and why is that?
Speaker 2: Are they the least cute or are they the ugliest
Speaker 2: or the the least lesser known?
Speaker 1: I think often it is lesser known. And so you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that we love in value about
Speaker 1: Bird of the Year is that it creates conversations all
Speaker 1: up and down the country about you know, our various
Speaker 1: bird species. And the challenge, of course, in this busy
Speaker 1: world that we live in is New Zealanders on the
Speaker 1: one hand, feel very connected to our native wildlife, and
Speaker 1: on the other hand, I think probably don't know a
Speaker 1: lot about it.
Speaker 4: You know, and and one of.
Speaker 1: The challenges we have as a conservation organization is in
Speaker 1: New Zealand we have the highest proportion of threatened species
Speaker 1: in the world.
Speaker 4: Many of those obviously are birds.
Speaker 1: We've already lost many, many species of birds to extinction
Speaker 1: in this country because of kind of pess predator's habitat loss.
Speaker 4: Et cetera.
Speaker 1: And so we want to raise awareness of those underbirds
Speaker 1: in particular. And you know, David and Bruh often talks
Speaker 1: about the fact that people won't care about what they
Speaker 1: haven't experienced, and experiencing it doesn't mean you have to
Speaker 1: go out into a national park somewhere and discover these
Speaker 1: birds for yourself. You might experience these birds by learning
Speaker 1: more about them through you through this competition and falling
Speaker 1: a bit in love with the things you didn't know about.
Speaker 1: And once you experience them, you start to love them.
Speaker 1: Once you love them, you want to care about them,
Speaker 1: So you might put a trap up in.
Speaker 4: Your backyard, et cetera.
Speaker 1: You might start contributing to your local conservation project.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for joining us, Nikola, thanks for
Speaker 3: having me.
Speaker 2: That's Itid for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 2: at enzadherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
Speaker 2: produced by Jane Ye and Richard Martin, who is also
Speaker 2: our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page
Speaker 2: on iHeartRadio or where wherever you get your podcasts, and
Speaker 2: tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.