One of the world’s rarest penguins has been crowned New Zealand’s bird of the year, in an unusually sedate year for the competition, free from the foreign interference and voting scandals of previous events.
The endangered yellow-eyed penguin, or hoiho, is the largest of New Zealand’s mainland penguin species and is distinctive for the pale yellow band of feathers linking the eyes.
The hoiho, meaning “noise shouter” in Māori due to its shrill call, lives along parts of the South Island’s east coast and in the sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands. The shy, fishy-smelling species tends to live in native coastal forests, scrub or dense flax.
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Over the years, the contest has become a lightning-rod for scandal, from crowning a bat the winner in 2021, to accusations of Russian interference in 2019, and claims Australians attempted to rig the contest in favour of the shag in 2018.
The two-week competition attracted more than 52,000 verified votes – a significant drop compared with 2023’s event, which leapt to 350,000 votes across 195 countries after British-American comedian and talkshow host John Oliver ran a global campaign for the threatened pūteketeke – a grunting, puking bird with an unusual repertoire of mating rituals.
Oliver’s self-described “alarmingly aggressive” campaign, including buying up billboards in New Zealand, Japan, France, the UK, India and the US state of Wisconsin. A plane with a pūteketeke campaign banner also flew over the beaches of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
His efforts were rewarded when the pūteketeke was crowned the 2023 winner.