British comedian and US talkshow host John Oliver exploded into New Zealand’s bird of the century competition with a global campaign in support of the threatened pūteketeke.
The annual two-week contest normally attracts a total of about 60,000 votes. So far, that same number of votes have come in overnight since Oliver announced himself as the official campaign manager for the pūteketeke during Sunday’s episode of Last Week Tonight in the US.
“This is what democracy is all about – America interfering in foreign elections,” he said.
On the show, Oliver unveiled billboards in several locations around the world including a moving truck billboard in the UK challenging Britons to “Help us crown a real king” as in the pūteketeke and not King Charles.
“They are weird puking birds with colourful mullets. What’s not to love here?” said Oliver of the pūteketeke that eats hundreds of its feathers to line its stomach before vomiting them back up again.
Oliver praised the bird’s egalitarian co-parenting style where male and female take turns incubating their eggs. The pūteketeke’s unusual mating ritual was also relatable for Oliver where both birds “grab a clump of wet grass and chest bump each other before standing around unsure of what to do next,” he said.
Oliver admitted the show’s campaign was “alarmingly aggressive”, buying up billboards in New Zealand, Japan, France, the UK, India and the US state of Wisconsin. A plane with a pūteketeke campaign banner flew over the beaches of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
“I don’t just want the pūteketeke to win. I want it to win in the biggest landslide in the history of this competition,” he said, as he walked across the studio to a massive puppet of the bird twice his height.
Jon Oliver's campaign for the Pūteketeke to win Bird of the Century has kicked off with more than 10,000 votes coming in overnight! Verifying emails is a massive ongoing job - as you can imagine!!https://t.co/674rl8IyT8
— Forest & Bird (@Forest_and_Bird) November 6, 2023
The competition has previously experienced controversy including for the crowning of a bat and not a bird in 2021.
Each year, often-local volunteers run the campaigns for 75 bird candidates selected for the competition, which is run by conservation organisation Forest & Bird. Oliver is up against the likes of an Auckland primary school, which is campaigning for the vocally gifted tūī, and University of Otago research students who are representing the rockhopper penguin.
“No, we’re not salty about US heavyweight Last Week Tonight lurching into the campaign. We’re salty (and full of krill) because we’re sea birds,” was the message on the penguin’s official campaign Instagram account following Oliver’s show.
The tiny, yellow pīwauwau rock wren won the 2022 bird of the year competition with about 2,800 votes. As of last Friday, when Forest & Bird last tallied the results, the kea, a green alpine parrot, was in the lead, according to bird of the century spokesperson Ellen Rykers.
