So… mission accomplished? It doesn’t matter which bird won (so long as it wasn’t a bloody bat!), John Oliver did the organisation and the birds a massive favour.
Yep, the main point of bird of the year is to raise awareness and help all the birds do better… so in that respect, Oliver seems to have helped a lot
Ah that’s great. That’s what I hoped would happen - foriegn donations!
Honestly, my kiwi brethren. Is it really that big of a deal?
From my very narrow (american) perspective, all of the reasons why Oliver picked the bird was mainly for thw sound and look. Which to be honest judged on its face seems valid.
Just wondering how real this is versus media exploiting a situation
Our love for Bird of the Year is real. I can see how it might seem weird that we like birds so much but imagine if the only native American wildlife you had were birds, and heaps of them were going extinct.
Just as birds in NZ evolved to fill ecological niches taken by mammals in most countries (wrens acting like mice, parrots acting like monkeys) they also fill a corner of our hearts where you might have a bison or a wolf.
That said the John Oliver participation is a huge boost and most people are happy about it. Pretend outrage about hacks by White Faced Heron lobby etc is part of the tradition.
It’s all about raising money for Forest and Bird. In that respect it has been great. I don’t think there are many people that actually care about John Oliver rigging the vote.
The amount of media attention it got in NZ I think represents how little other news there was at the time. And it all helped the purpose.
Nature (and the news) certainly abhors a vacuum!
I’m sure there’s a cheap shot about the news being vacuous but I all out of ideas
Something about the vacuum reflecting on the nature of their intelligence/morals…there is defiantly something there.
“The news abhors a vacuum like a cat hates water. They’ll fill it with anything, even if it’s just a debate on the proper way to peel a banana. Tune in at 11 for the gripping conclusion!”
Thanks ChatGPT
