Behind the scenes at Bird of the Year
Yes, kākāpō are cool. But they’re not the only cool native birds that call Aotearoa home.
Kia ora and welcome to Future Proof, brought to you by Electric Kiwi.
Finally, New Zealand’s favourite election is here. The bat is goneburger. None of Toby Manhire’s suggested contenders made the cut. But still the controversy is heating up… or maybe in this case Kontroversy with a K for kākāpō.
Previously in this newsletter, I’ve mentioned that I’m on the Bird of the Year team for 2022. I feel like I’ve answered a million questions about kākāpō not being on the candidate list this past week. Why did you kick out the kākāpō? What has the kākāpō ever done to you? Are you fat-shaming the kākāpō?
I get it. I’m a huge kākāpō fan too. I have kākāpō-print socks. I’ve met Sirocco three times and travelled to Invercargill just to see kākāpō chicks. Just two seconds of a clip of kākāpō chicks at the Wildlife Hospital in Dunedin will have you falling in love with these moss-coloured clowns. Kākāpō are chonky, they’re charismatic, and they’re infinitely meme-able. But…
Newsflash: New Zealand has more than one cool bird
As much as I love those bumbling, beautiful birds, it’s time to share the spotlight. Aotearoa is home to so many cool birds with big personalities, adorable looks, fascinating backstories and eyebrow-raising lifestyles. And Bird of the Year is backed by a team of keen volunteers of all ages managing campaigns of all different birds – creating art, memes, music and telling stories about the birds that make New Zealand unique.
For example, Gilly Osmond was inspired to campaign for the weweia, the New Zealand dabchick, when she discovered a pair living in a lake on her Taranaki property. These little waterbirds are super expressive, with elaborate courtship dances and an array of warning poses designed to scare off intruders. They carry their babies on their back, and can alter their buoyancy like a submarine using only their feathers. The weweia is a threatened species, with only around 2,000 left.
Tiny superstars and epic journeys
We have birds that make mind-boggling journeys: the huahou red knot flies every year between New Zealand and Siberia. Cook’s petrels migrate to either California or the coast of South America. Tawaki, the penguin that lives in the Fiordland rainforest, will swim up to 2,500km on a single trip for some kaimoana (that’s a greater distance than the length of mainland New Zealand).
At the teeny end of the size spectrum, we have a bunch of sweet lil cuties. New Zealand’s smallest bird, the tītipounamu, weighs about the same as a single square of Whittaker’s chocolate. Grey warblers are similarly lightweight, but have a slightly longer tail, and a loud, high-pitched trill that you’d expect to come from a bird twice its size. There’s the mohua, a bright yellow little forest bird that features on our $100 note, dubbed “custardhead” by its campaign manager this year.
Hollywood-worthy comeback stories
Some of our birds have incredible comeback stories (that are still in progress). The Chatham Island black robin was saved in the 1980s by a single breeding female, Old Blue (and the dedication of conservationists), with the population growing from just 5 birds to more than 250 today. Another original All Black, the kakī, declined to just 23 birds in the early 1980s, but has bounced back (with a lot of help from DOC) to around 150 living in the wild now. The Campbell Island subspecies of the tutukiwi subantarctic snipe was discovered in 1997 clinging to existence on a rocky islet; it’s since recolonised the main Campbell Island following the eradication of rats. And of course our plump rainbow chooks, the takahē, are the bird that came back from the dead. They were thought to be extinct until a remnant population was discovered in Fiordland in 1948. Today there are around 440 takahē.
I’ll leave you to discover more of Aotearoa’s bird-y goodness for yourself, and instead end with a stark stat: around 80% of our native birds are threatened or at risk of extinction. If there’s one thing Bird of the Year shows, it’s that we love our birds. A lot. So I’m hopeful that this celebration of the joy, pride, and sheer entertainment that birds bring us will ultimately translate into action.
And in the meantime, maybe the world’s heaviest parrot could try its luck in another wildlife competition.
Chances are water heating is one of the biggest contributing factors to your energy bills. But where do you start? Fewer showers? Not likely.
What about a more practical answer that means you can use the same amount of hot water, but at a reduced price? Electric Kiwi is testing the water to see how much households could save by taking control of when their cylinders are heated.
In partnership with Influx Energy Data, Electric Kiwi is inviting 60 households to take part in a trial to find out the best and most practical way of reducing water heating costs, while ensuring hot water is still available when needed.
Electric Kiwi uses practical solutions that leverage technology to benefit the environment, as well as saving customers money.
Wellington speedruns tree planting
This winter planting season saw one plant in the ground every four seconds, for a total of 850,000 plants across the Wellington region. Meanwhile, in the Waikato, three million trees have been planted in the last five years across swathes of unproductive land. Retiring such “unproductive” land and planting trees instead contributes to cleaner water, increased biodiversity, and climate resilience.
How to interpret the Living Planet Index
You might’ve seen the headlines in the past week, proclaiming a staggering 69% decline in animal populations. This doesn’t mean we’ve lost 69% of our wildlife. So what does it actually mean? Hannah Ritchie, head of research at Our World in Data, has a nice explainer. What the Living Planet Index says is that across almost 32,000 studied animal populations, there was an average relative decline of 69%. But by virtue of being an average, this stat obscures the nuance: some populations are actually increasing, while others are declining terribly. “The decline of global biodiversity is worrying and serious,” Ritchie writes. “But we should take the time to look past the headlines at the data for individual species. This helps us to focus on what we need to do to turn things around.” Plus, this stat is only about vertebrates – animals with backbones like mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish – and neglects invertebrates like insects.
Recent reports highlight dire state of oceans
The Ministry for the Environment and Stats NZ’s Our marine environment 2022 report was released last week, and it’s not pretty. Oceans are acidifying while sea level and temperature are rising. Plastic pollution, including microplastics, is widespread. Many marine species – including marine mammals and seabirds – are threatened or at risk of extinction. The Guardian’s Tess McClure sums up the “sobering picture”. Stuff’s Amber Allott reports on new research into ocean warming, which finds that the rate of heating during the 2010s was more than double that seen in the 1960s. But if we stick to the two-degree warming limit as per the Paris Agreement, we could see ocean warming fizzle out by 2030.
When it comes to climate, do we have reason to be optimistic?
The Detail podcast does a stocktake of New Zealand’s progress towards net-zero 2050 (we’re not doing well) but still finds there’s room for hope and optimism. On Kill Your Darlings, Gerard Mazza chronicles his journey from climate doomer riddled with eco-anxiety, to walking a more hopeful, balanced path.
We need better environmental data to inform $2b annual spend
A new report from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment says we need better data to know whether the government’s annual $2 billion spend on the environment is making a difference. The report also calls for better clarity, transparency and accountability when it comes to prioritising environmental issues and outcomes. For example, we don’t know if we’re sustainably managing freshwater, because we don’t have reliable data on how much water is being taken from aquifers, rivers and lakes.
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Next step in refining and tweaking coastal wetland rules due any day now, Emma Hatton writes for Newsroom.
Our members make the difference. Their support ensures we can continue to employ and commission diverse voices covering stories from a range of perspectives and make them freely available to all. From Spinoff stalwarts Toby Manhire and Alex Casey to young journalists like Charlotte Muru-Lanning and Shanti Mathias, our writers and contributors do valuable work that is only possible with the support of readers like you. If you can, support the team and donate today.
To end this edition, I couldn’t go past the ruru that got hit by a car, ended up at BirdCare Aotearoa’s hospital, and was very, very grumpy about it all – hence his nickname, Angry Ruru. Luckily Angry Ruru made a full recovery and was released on Sunday, Karanama Ruru (no relation) reports for Stuff. Angry Ruru is one of the thousands of patients that pass through Birdcare Aotearoa every year. The Spinoff’s Alex Casey visited the bird hospital to meet the patients and the people going to great lengths to care for them. (Including wearing pillowcases on their heads. You’ll have to read Alex’s piece to find out why!)
Vote wisely,
Ellen
Got some feedback about Future Proof or topics you’d like covered? Get in touch with me at futureproof@thespinoff.co.nz
