Every year, New Zealand has a contest for the bird of the year. Last year, I posted about the Pūteketeke, also known as the Crested Grebe (the Pūteketeke is the Maori name).
This year the winner is a disappearing penguin species, the Yellow-eyed Penguin, in Maori, the Hoiho - which means "noise shouter." The numbers have plummeted to only 1700 breeding pairs. Only birds native to new Zealand at considered. These are interesting little birds.
Wikipedia has a good explanation of dropping numbers, and the questions are still open.
On the New Zealand mainland, the species has experienced a significant decline over the past 20 years. On the Otago Peninsula, numbers have dropped by 75% since the mid-1990s and population trends indicate the possibility of local extinction in the next 20 to 40 years. While the effect of rising ocean temperatures is still being studied, an infectious outbreak in the mid-2000s played a large role in the drop. Human activities at sea (fisheries, pollution) may have an equal if not greater influence on the species' downward trend.[4]meme
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| The breed in dense undergrowth. |
It is cool.
By the way, this is last year's winner, the Pūteketeke.
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