Opinion: I will not rest until the albatross is crowned Bird of the Year 🏆🪶
Re: News journalist Janhavi Gosavi explains why her favourite bird deserves your vote.
For as long as the sky has been blue and water has been wet, I have yearned for the mighty albatross to win Bird of the Year.
Kia ora! I’m Janhavi, one of the journalists on the Re: News team and I really, really want need you to vote for this damn bird.
Me visiting my albatross friends at Te Papa a few years ago.
Around this time every year, New Zealand’s most important democratic election rolls around.
Bird of the Year (BOTY) is every bit as impassioned and unserious as it sounds, a bit like New Zealanders ourselves.
There’s campaign managers, international interference and more than one voting scandal.
In and amongst the Hot New Bombshells (native birds) that come and go from the Villa (the BOTY list), the albatross is a mainstay.
Call it a spiritual connection or a running-joke-that’s-gone-on-for-too-long, but I’m obsessed with albatrosses.
Me begging people to vote for the albatross in BOTY 2018 (left) and 2020 (right).
Toroa (albatrosses) are the largest seabirds in the world, they spend most of their lives out at sea and can live well into their 50s.
They’re majestic voyagers who have seen more of the world than I ever will and I’m in awe of them.
Despite its regal face and three-metre wingspan, the albatross has never won Bird of the Year.
“That’s fucked up!” I hear you say. Too right you are.
To validate my emotional attachment to a seabird I’ve never seen, I spoke to albatross expert Edin Whitehead.
Edin has her PhD in seabird ecophysiology and conservation, and is a research assistant at the University of Auckland.
She says there are between 21-24 species of albatrosses and about 11-13 of those breed in New Zealand, making it the centre for albatross diversity.
Albatrosses can be divided into two groups: greater albatrosses, which are larger, and mollymawks, which are smaller.
The Antipodean Albatross is one of the greater albatrosses and Edin calls it “a poster bird for how at-risk albatrosses are”.
Various species of albatrosses being goofy near Kaikoura. Image: Getty.
There’s many things that make albatrosses awesome.
Albatrosses have the ability to lock their wings into place and glide for thousands of kilometres at a time.
They don’t have to spend much energy flying and their heart rates are lower while gliding than they are while they’re sitting on their nests, Edin says.
Albatrosses generally mate for life and have a long courting process that involves a lot of singing and dancing.
Edin says they only come on land to breed. Once a chick is born, it takes around nine months for it to first set off to sea. Once it leaves the breeding ground, it will only come back once it's mature.
For albatrosses, that can mean they spend their first six to 15 years at sea without visiting home, she says.
Me STILL begging people to vote for the albatross in BOTY 2021 (left) and 2023 (right).
Getting people to care about seabirds can be tough.
Edin says “all of our albatross species are of some conservation concern”.
Seabirds are threatened on an international level because there are threats to their survival on land and at sea.
Edin says albatrosses tend to follow fishing vessels around as a food source which is dangerous.
They’re hugely at risk of fishers by-catch and can get hooked on long lines, caught up in nets or injured on cables, she says.
It’s hard to get people to give a shit when most of us haven't ever seen seabirds and can’t go visit them in sanctuaries like other land birds.
“These are birds that you'll only see if you go to sea which is a huge barrier for a lot of people,” Edin says.
We have more native seabird species in Aotearoa than all of the land and freshwater species combined, she says, but land species like the kākāpō still get more press.
Regardless, Edin and I are firmly Team Seabird, with Edin saying the birds “have a really important role ecologically as well as just being really gorgeous and awesome and wonderful”.
Me visiting the albatrosses at the Canterbury Museum in 2022.
Voting for Bird of the Year closes this Sunday at 5pm.
While I strongly implore you to pop a tick next to the magnificent albatross, I’ll be stoked no matter which bird you vote for.
Sure, BOTY is silly and a bit ridiculous. But it helps start a national conversation about our endangered native manu, who are all taonga and deserve to be protected.
So hop online and cast your vote for your five favourite native birds — may the best one win.
Re: News recommendations
These are not paid recommendations - they’re just things we like, including stuff we’ve enjoyed watching from our whānau at TVNZ 💗
The Perfect Couple — Two people in the Re: News team are loving this new crime-mystery show on Netflix. One of them says she’s “addicted, reminds me of Big Little Lies” and the other says “Nicole Kidman - what range the woman has!”
Celebrity Treasure Island — Another Re: team member has been enjoying the latest season of celebrity treasure island and says seeing a former and current politician in a different environment is very entertaining. You can check it out on TVNZ+.
Short n’ Sweet — Sabrina Carpenter’s latest album is everything I hoped it would be and more. Some of the tracks are yee-haw inspired while others have distinct notes of Ariana Grande. It’s a great pop record (allegedly largely about her situationship with Shawn Mendes?) and my current favourite song is ‘Sharpest Tool’.