A smelly penguin wins New Zealand's hard-fought bird election

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — It's noisy, smelly, shy — and New Zealand’s bird of the year.

The hoiho, or yellow-eyed penguin, won the country’s fiercely fought avian election on Monday, offering hope to supporters of the endangered bird that recognition from its victory might prompt a revival of the species.

It followed a campaign for the annual Bird of the Year vote that was without the foreign interference scandals and cheating controversies of past polls. Instead, campaigners in the long-running contest sought votes in the usual ways — launching meme wars, seeking celebrity endorsements and even getting tattoos to prove their loyalty.

More than 50,000 people voted in the poll, 300,000 fewer than last year, when British late night host John Oliver drove a humorous campaign for the pūteketeke -- a “deeply weird bird” which eats and vomits its own feathers – securing a landslide win.

This year, the number of votes cast represented 1% of the population of New Zealand — a country where nature is never far away and where a love of native birds is instilled in citizens from childhood.

“Birds are our heart and soul,” said Emma Rawson, who campaigned for the fourth-placed ruru, a small brown owl with a melancholic call. New Zealand's only native mammals are bats and marine species, putting the spotlight on its birds, which are beloved — and often rare.

This year's victor, the hoiho — its name means “noise shouter” in the Māori language — is a shy bird thought to be the world's rarest penguin. Only found on New Zealand's South and Chatham islands — and on subantarctic islands south of the country — numbers have dropped perilously by 78% in the past 15 years.

“This spotlight couldn’t have come at a better time. This iconic penguin is disappearing from mainland Aotearoa before our eyes,” Nicola Toki, chief executive of Forest & Bird — the organization that runs the poll — said in a press release, using the Māori name for New Zealand. Despite intensive conservation efforts on land, she said, the birds drown in nets and sea and can't find enough food.

“The campaign has raised awareness, but what we really hope is that it brings tangible support,” said Charlie Buchan, campaign manager for the hoiho. But while the bird is struggling, it attracted a star billing in the poll: celebrity endorsements flew in from English zoologist Jane Goodall, host of the Amazing Race Phil Keoghan, and two former New Zealand prime ministers.

Aspiring bird campaign managers — this year ranging from power companies to high school students — submit applications to Forest & Bird for the posts. The hoiho bid was run by a collective of wildlife groups, a museum, a brewery and a rugby team in the city of Dunedin, where the bird is found on mainland New Zealand, making it the highest-powered campaign of the 2024 vote.

“I do feel like we were the scrappy underdog,” said Emily Bull, a spokesperson for the runner-up campaign, for the karure — a small, “goth” black robin only found on New Zealand’s Chatham Island.

The karure's bid was directed by the students’ association at Victoria University of Wellington, prompting a fierce skirmish on the college campus when the student magazine staged an opposing campaign for the kororā, or little blue penguin.

The rivalry provoked a meme war and students in bird costumes. Several people got tattoos. When the magazine’s campaign secured endorsements of the city council and local zoo, Bull despaired for the black robin's bid.

But the karure — which has performed a real-life comeback since the 1980s, with conservation efforts increasing the species from five birds to 250 — took second place overall.

This weekend as Rawson wrapped up her campaign for the ruru, she took her efforts directly to the people, courting votes at a local dog park. The veteran campaign manager who has directed the bids for other birds in past years was rewarded by the ruru placing fourth in the poll, her best ever result.

“I have not been in human political campaigning before,” said Rawson, who is drawn to the competition because of the funds and awareness it generates. The campaign struck a more sedate tone this year, she added.

“There’s been no international interference, even though that was actually a lot of fun,” she said, referring to Oliver’s high-profile campaign.

It was not the only controversy the election has seen. While anyone in the world can vote, Forest & Bird now requires electors to verify their ballots after foreign interference plagued the contest before. In 2018, Australian pranksters cast hundreds of fraudulent votes in favor of the shag.

The following year, Forest & Bird was forced to clarify that a flurry of votes from Russia appeared to be from legitimate bird-lovers.

While campaigns are fiercely competitive, managers described tactics more akin to pro wrestling — in which fights are scripted — than divisive political contests.

“Sometimes people want to make posts that are kind of like beefy with you and they’ll always message you and be like, hey, is it okay if I post this?” Bull said. “There is a really sweet community. It's really wholesome.”

This story corrects percentage to 1% instead of 10%.

A karure, or Chatham Islands black robin pictured on Chatham Island in Sept. 2016 is runner-up to a hoiho or yellow-eyed penguin in the New Zealand Bird of the Year competition, announced Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (Oscar Thomas via AP)

A man rides past a mural celebrating John Oliver's New Zealand's 2023 Bird of the Year campaign in Wellington, New Zealand, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Charlotte GrahamMcLay)

A hoiho or yellow-eyed penguin pictured on April 2, 2023, has won New Zealand's annual Bird of the Year vote, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024, after a fierce contest absent the foreign interference and controversies that have upset the country's avian elections before. (Hayden Parsons via AP)

A hoiho or yellow-eyed penguin pictured on April 2, 2023, has won New Zealand's annual Bird of the Year vote, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024, after a fierce contest absent the foreign interference and controversies that have upset the country's avian elections before. (Hayden Parsons via AP)

A hoiho or yellow-eyed penguin pictured on April 2, 2023, has won New Zealand's annual Bird of the Year vote, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024, after a fierce contest absent the foreign interference and controversies that have upset the country's avian elections before. (Hayden Parsons via AP)

A hoiho or yellow-eyed penguin pictured on April 2, 2023, has won New Zealand's annual Bird of the Year vote, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024, after a fierce contest absent the foreign interference and controversies that have upset the country's avian elections before. (Hayden Parsons via AP)

The Christmas tradition has become nearly global in scope: Children from around the world track Santa Claus as he sweeps across the earth, delivering presents and defying time.

Each year, at least 100,000 kids call into the North American Aerospace Defense Command to inquire about Santa’s location. Millions more follow online in nine languages, from English to Japanese.

On any other night, NORAD is scanning the heavens for potential threats, such as last year’s Chinese spy balloon. But on Christmas Eve, volunteers in Colorado Springs are fielding questions like, “When is Santa coming to my house?” and, “Am I on the naughty or nice list?”

“There are screams and giggles and laughter,” said Bob Sommers, 63, a civilian contractor and NORAD volunteer.

Sommers often says on the call that everyone must be asleep before Santa arrives, prompting parents to say, “Do you hear what he said? We got to go to bed early.”

NORAD’s annual tracking of Santa has endured since the Cold War, predating ugly sweater parties and Mariah Carey classics. The tradition continues regardless of government shutdowns, such as the one in 2018, and this year.

Here’s how it began and why the phones keep ringing.

It started with a child’s accidental phone call in 1955. The Colorado Springs newspaper printed a Sears advertisement that encouraged children to call Santa, listing a phone number.

A boy called. But he reached the Continental Air Defense Command, now NORAD, a joint U.S. and Canadian effort to spot potential enemy attacks. Tensions were growing with the Soviet Union, along with anxieties about nuclear war.

Air Force Col. Harry W. Shoup picked up an emergency-only “red phone” and was greeted by a tiny voice that began to recite a Christmas wish list.

“He went on a little bit, and he takes a breath, then says, ‘Hey, you’re not Santa,’” Shoup told The Associated Press in 1999.

Realizing an explanation would be lost on the youngster, Shoup summoned a deep, jolly voice and replied, “Ho, ho, ho! Yes, I am Santa Claus. Have you been a good boy?”

Shoup said he learned from the boy’s mother that Sears mistakenly printed the top-secret number. He hung up, but the phone soon rang again with a young girl reciting her Christmas list. Fifty calls a day followed, he said.

In the pre-digital age, the agency used a 60-by-80 foot (18-by-24 meter) plexiglass map of North America to track unidentified objects. A staff member jokingly drew Santa and his sleigh over the North Pole.

The tradition was born.

“Note to the kiddies,” began an AP story from Colorado Springs on Dec. 23, 1955. “Santa Claus Friday was assured safe passage into the United States by the Continental Air Defense Command.”

In a likely reference to the Soviets, the article noted that Santa was guarded against possible attack from “those who do not believe in Christmas.”

Some grinchy journalists have nitpicked Shoup’s story, questioning whether a misprint or a misdial prompted the boy’s call.

In 2014, tech news site Gizmodo cited an International News Service story from Dec. 1, 1955, about a child’s call to Shoup. Published in the Pasadena Independent, the article said the child reversed two digits in the Sears number.

“When a childish voice asked COC commander Col. Harry Shoup, if there was a Santa Claus at the North Pole, he answered much more roughly than he should — considering the season:

‘There may be a guy called Santa Claus at the North Pole, but he’s not the one I worry about coming from that direction,’” Shoup said in the brief piece.

In 2015, The Atlantic magazine doubted the flood of calls to the secret line, while noting that Shoup had a flair for public relations.

Phone calls aside, Shoup was indeed media savvy. In 1986, he told the Scripps Howard News Service that he recognized an opportunity when a staff member drew Santa on the glass map in 1955.

A lieutenant colonel promised to have it erased. But Shoup said, “You leave it right there,” and summoned public affairs. Shoup wanted to boost morale for the troops and public alike.

“Why, it made the military look good — like we’re not all a bunch of snobs who don’t care about Santa Claus,” he said.

Shoup died in 2009. His children told the StoryCorps podcast in 2014 that it was a misprinted Sears ad that prompted the phone calls.

“And later in life he got letters from all over the world,” said Terri Van Keuren, a daughter. “People saying ‘Thank you, Colonel, for having, you know, this sense of humor.’”

NORAD’s tradition is one of the few modern additions to the centuries-old Santa story that have endured, according to Gerry Bowler, a Canadian historian who spoke to the AP in 2010.

Ad campaigns or movies try to “kidnap” Santa for commercial purposes, said Bowler, who wrote “Santa Claus: A Biography.” NORAD, by contrast, takes an essential element of Santa’s story and views it through a technological lens.

In a recent interview with the AP, Air Force Lt. Gen. Case Cunningham explained that NORAD radars in Alaska and Canada —- known as the northern warning system — are the first to detect Santa.

He leaves the North Pole and typically heads for the international dateline in the Pacific Ocean. From there he moves west, following the night.

“That’s when the satellite systems we use to track and identify targets of interest every single day start to kick in,” Cunningham said. “A probably little-known fact is that Rudolph’s nose that glows red emanates a lot of heat. And so those satellites track (Santa) through that heat source.”

NORAD has an app and website, www.noradsanta.org, that will track Santa on Christmas Eve from 4 a.m. to midnight, mountain standard time. People can call 1-877-HI-NORAD to ask live operators about Santa’s location from 6 a.m. to midnight, mountain time.

FILE - Santa tracker volunteer Meghan Huyck, right, and other volunteers answer phone calls from children all over the world at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., Dec. 24, 2017. (Jerilee Bennett/The Gazette via AP, File)

FILE – Canadian Lt. Maj. Chris Hache takes a call while volunteering at the NORAD Tracks Santa center at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., Dec. 24, 2017. (Jerilee Bennett/The Gazette via AP, File)

FILE - This image provided by NORAD — the North American Aerospace Defense Command, responsible for monitoring and defending the skies above North America — shows NORAD's Santa Tracker. (NORAD via AP, File)

FILE - NORAD Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Charles D. Luckey takes a call while volunteering at the NORAD Tracks Santa center at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., Dec. 24, 2014. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)