Bird of the Year (Māori: Te Manu Rongonui o te Tau) is an annual election-based competition run by the New Zealand conservation organisation Forest & Bird to elect a New Zealand native “Bird of the Year”. The competition is intended to raise awareness of the conservation threats to many endangered native birds.
For the birds and for details on how to vote – Bird of the Year
Bird of the Year draws support from celebrities including politicians, artists, actors, and television personalities.The election is a significant social media and public event in New Zealand; there are regular attempts at voter fraud, some winners (such as the short-tailed bat) have been controversial.
In 2023, a TV campaign by British-American comedian John Oliver for the pūteketeke drew international attention to the contest, leading it to win with more than 290,000 votes.
HISTORY
Bird of the Year was first launched in October 2005 by Michael Szabo, editor of Forest & Bird at the time, initially as an online poll featured in Forest & Bird’s first email newsletter; votes were collected by email and through the post.Szabo noticed the public outcry when RNZ considered dropping bird calls from its daily Morning Report, and decided to tap into this public interest with an annual poll.The first BOTY contest included 76 native bird species and received a total of 900 votes; the tūī was the winner.BOTY was later championed by Forest & Bird’s communications manager Helen Bain, who saw it as a “light-hearted…way of raising the profile of native birds and the threats to them”.
- Over the next days of the Bird of the Year – this website will feature some of the birds that I think are in the ‘running’ to br the very next Bird of the Year.
