Has there ever been a more absurd and contrived hullabaloo than the one over New Zealand’s so-called Bird of the Century?
The tiresome attention-seeker John Oliver – a man who manages to irritate in the same way yappy small dogs do – must have been rubbing his hands with delight at the way the New Zealand media obligingly lapped up his hijacking of Forest and Bird’s competition.
The line was spun that Oliver was making a point about American interference in foreign elections. Bullshit. He was doing what he has habitually done: making fun of a country he obviously regards as quaintly eccentric. What could be a more perfect symbol of New Zealand’s weirdness than the puteketeke, a reclusive native bird that engages in bizarre mating dances and eats its own feathers then vomits them up?
Even if there was a serious point behind Oliver’s prank, which I don’t believe for a moment, it was totally lost in the ensuing media fever. “Look, an overseas celebrity is paying attention to us!” It’s a ploy that never fails to excite gullible New Zealand media. And why not? It beats the hard yards of real journalism.
Most New Zealanders – i.e. those not employed in newsrooms – would have been left scratching their heads in puzzlement and asking what all the fuss was about. Most had never heard of the puteketeke and wondered whether it even existed.
Had the bird been referred to by its common name, the crested grebe, some would have recognised it. As it was, many wondered whether the puteketeke was a hoax – a non-existent species created so that Oliver could have a laugh at New Zealand’s expense, which was the real purpose of the exercise.
They might also have quite reasonably asked why, in 2023, we were being asked to name the bird of the century. There are 77 years still to go.
Forest and Bird will doubtless argue that its competition served the purpose of promoting awareness of vulnerable bird species. We certainly now know what a puteketeke is. But by buying into Oliver’s stunt, the media were complicit in an exercise designed to mock our odd little country on the edge of the planet.
That’s okay though, because it gave the team on TVNZ’s Breakfast show an excuse to wet themselves with excitement when the entirely predictable winner was announced. God help us all.
13 comments:
I will be the first to comment seeing I have just a few minutes ago listened to "Media Comment" on RNZ. They covered and elaborated on this whole silly show - but in no way came out as clearly as you, Karl.
Bravo, Karl. What a laugh. I had never even heard of that bird in my whole life.
MediaWatch on RNZ both last Wednesday and today seemed to say that the whole facile charade was cooked up between Forest & Bird and John Oliver to get publicity, and especially revenue, for Forest & Bird, and it succeeded.
Oliver is deemed to be a comedian and popular in NZ. His views on politics, Brexit, etc fit the narratives of NZ MSM so they love him . If not he would be cancelled.
Well said, Karl !!
That farcical charade was a disgrace.
Forest and Bird have made themselves look ridiculous and naive, to be ridiculed by this comedian !
I'm amazed you confessed to watching TVNZ Breakfast Karl.
Simon,
I didn't watch Breakfast and never have. They played an audio clip on RNZ's Mediawatch (I probably shouldn't admit listening to that, either).
Well that's a relief. I was starting to worry about your sanity.
Forest & Bird themselves encouraged Oliver's stunt.
And lost all of my respect in the process.
Who is having who on.
A search of the Crested Grebe reveals...
Although these grebes seldom fly, they reached New Zealand from Australia in the 1960s, and are a rare self-introduced native. In 2005 there were around 100 birds on sheltered lakes and farm ponds around New Zealand, mainly north of Auckland.
Still curious: if the Grebes in question never arrived until the 1960 how did the Grebe get blessed with the Maori name Putuketekete....
Zeke,
Good question. For what it's worth, I consulted my Hand Guide to the Birds of New Zealand, published in 1999, which gives puteketeke as the Maori name for the Australasian crested grebe. That suggests the name predated the current enthusiasm for te reo. I'm no ornothologist, but I imagine it's quite possible that occasional vagrants made it to NZ from Australia prior to the 60s and were named by Maori.
The Māori Language Act 1987 predates 1999 by more than a decade.
Well - Forest & Birds get the last laugh : $600,000 donation!
No question about it, the Grebe did not leave departing OZ until 1960, it could well have been blown across to NZ well before Kupe.
My mind was wandering a tad as to its habit of eating its own feathers and I was curious as to what instinct had developed to create such an anomaly .... and then I thought about indigenous Cloak makers.
Maybe the Grebes impulse in survival meant denying the law of supply and demand
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