Hoiho, the yellow-eyed penguin, wins bird of the year

Monday, 11 November 2019

Visitors to the Catlins are charmed by the sight of five hoiho (yellow eyed penguin) waddling up and down the beach. (Video first published in November 2019)

The Hoiho, the yellow-eyed penguin, has won the hotly contested Bird of the Year competition.

It is the first time a seabird has won since Forest & Bird launched the competition 14 years ago.

The hoiho took 12,022 out of the 43,460 votes made and verified.

The hoiho and kākāpō were neck and neck for much of the two-week voting period, but hoiho edged ahead in the final few days, Forest & Bird spokesperson Megan Hubscher said.

**READ MORE:

Team Hoiho ran a strong campaign for this year's Bird Of The Year.

* Charmed by five endangered hoiho, hanging around my bach

* Bird of the Year: Hoiho, kākāpō neck and neck at halfway mark

Yellow eyed penguin at Katiki Point near Moeraki in Otago.

* Bird of the Year: Kelly Tarlton's penguins back their cousin the hoiho

* Bird of the Year campaigns heat up ahead of voting

* Kererū takes out Bird of the Year honours for 2018**

'It was so close between these two amazing endangered birds, it was impossible to predict a winner for most of the competition.'

The hoiho is the world's rarest penguin, with only 225 pairs remaining on mainland New Zealand in 2018-19.

It faces numerous threats including warming oceans leading to changes in food availability, bottom trawling damaging feeding grounds, being caught in fishing nets, and disturbance from humans.

The hoiho campaign gathered significant support, including from Dunedin rockers The Chills and two Dunedin Mayors, Hubscher said.

The hoiho also benefited from the early creation of a 'penguin coalition' between all four of the penguin campaign teams – hoiho, korora, tawaki, and rockhopper – wo pledged to back each other under the new voting system.

Memes and trash-talk took over the internet during Bird of the Year, she said.

The kākāpō took a lot of heat, being labelled boomers and moss chickens, while the incumbent bird of the year, the kererū, was accused of being drunk and not fulfilling last year's campaign promises.

The hoiho was teased for being the bird most likely to take a date to McDonald's for a Fillet-O-Fish, while the bittern ran a single-issue campaign of being the bird most able to imitate a stick.

'Bird of the Year has become a national passion, and that's thanks to everyone relentlessly and ruthlessly promoting their favourite bird's weirdest qualities to the globe,' Hubscher said.

'Our birds are so incredible and unique – all New Zealand birds are winners.'

The competition was introduced to raise awareness of nation's unique native birds and the threats they face.

Eighty per cent of New Zealand's birds are in trouble, and one out of three bird species is at serious risk of extinction including this year's winner, the hoiho.

TOP FIVE BIRDS 2019:

1. Hoiho, yellow-eyed penguin

2. Kākāpō

3. Kakaruia, black robin

4. Ttūturiwhatu, banded dotterel

5. Pīwakawaka, fantail