Puking bird wins New Zealand bird competition after comedian’s campaign
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The puteketeke won New Zealand’s Bird of the Century title in a competition where American-British comedian John Oliver’s involvement ruffled some local feathers.
PHOTO: AFP
WELLINGTON – The puteketeke, a bird that pukes, grunts, growls and has bizarre mating rituals, won New Zealand’s Bird of the Century title in a competition
The Bird of the Year competition – billed Bird of the Century in 2023 to celebrate environmental organisation Forest & Bird’s centenary – is an annual event in which people vote for their favourite New Zealand bird.
In 2023, American-British comedian Oliver exploited a loophole in the system that allows anyone to vote from anywhere for a bird.
Taking on the role of campaign manager for the burnt orange-mulleted puteketeke, Oliver asked people to vote for the bird on his weekly show, appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon to promote it, and erected campaign signs in capitals.
Campaign managers for other birds cried foul, calling on New Zealanders to get involved and vote for other birds, including the kakapo parrot and the national bird, the kiwi.
“We promised controversy but didn’t quite expect this. We’re stoked to see the outpouring of passion, creativity and debate that this campaign has ignited,” said Ms Nicola Toki, chief executive of competition organiser Forest & Bird.
As a response to perceived “American interference” in the bird election, New Zealanders turned out for the poll in force.
The competition received a record number of more than 350,000 verified votes from 195 countries, crashing the verification system and delaying the result for two days.
Ms Toki said thousands of votes had to be discarded as fraudulent, including 40,000 votes cast by a single person for a penguin. Another person from Pennsylvania cast 3,403 votes for the person’s choice of bird, with one vote arriving every three seconds.
Following news that Mr Oliver’s pick had beaten out the competition, New Zealand’s Prime Minister-elect Christopher Luxon congratulated the comedian on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The puteketeke eats its own feathers to line its stomach and then vomits to expel parasites, makes grunting and growling sounds, and engages in mating dances such as the “weed dance”, where the birds offer each other water weed, and the “ghostly penguin”, where they rise chest to chest while walking on water. REUTERS
