Following a Forest & Bird campaign gone massively global, thanks to the unbridled enthusiasm of Last Week Tonight host John Oliver, the Bird of the Century results are in, and it’s Mr. Oliver’s pick for the win: the orange-mulleted, prolific puker, the one and only Australasian crested grebe, a.k.a. the pūteketeke.
Even though we’re kākāpō loyalists, because a clumsy, slow-moving, flightless bird needs all the love it can get, every New Zealand bird is a winner as far as we’re concerned. And if all that media frenzy ratchets up the global enthusiasm for protecting endangered bird species everywhere, we’re all in—keep the critical conservation momentum going!
And congratulations pūteketeke! Long may you weed dance!
