New Zealand regularly ranks as one of the world’s most stable democracies. But voters are aflutter after a bat was installed in the role of “Bird of the Year” in an upset win.

       The tiny pekapeka-tou-roa, or long-tailed bat, is a mammal about the size of a human thumb and in serious trouble from predators invading its native forest habitat, according to conservationists.

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       The creature is also now the center of a voter backlash, with claims of election rigging and calls to “Stop the Steal” as citizens — some angry, some amused — responded to the news the bat had won a contest hosted by conservation group Forest & Bird that many felt it was biologically unqualified to enter. Some even appeared to joke about taking to the streets of Auckland in protest.

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       “On behalf of the collective of avians, we strongly object to a bat usurping our title of bird of the year,” one user wrote on Facebook. “While we sympathize with its endangered status, a bat is not a bird. A bat belongs in a belfry. A bat is batty. It may have wings, 2 legs and a beak, It doesn’t build nests, nor it does it lay eggs. Perhaps you will have to change your name this year to FOREST AND BATS,” they wrote.

       Forest & Bird runs the Bird of the Year poll each year to draw attention to the plight of native bird species, many of which are under threat from introduced predators such as stoats, rats and feral cats. An ambitious project underway across the island nation aims to get rid of nonnative predators by 2050.

       An island nation’s audacious effort to save its unique wildlife

       The online poll — open to voters from overseas as well as New Zealand — has had brushes with controversy before. In 2019, the arrival of hundreds of votes from Russia sparked claims of election meddling. The votes were ultimately judged legitimate, with the conservation group telling the Guardian newspaper at the time that interest from Russian ornithologists may be responsible.

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       In 2018, 300 fraudulent votes were reportedly cast in the online ballot by Australians attempting to rig the contest in favor of the shag — a vulgar term in local slang.

       “Birds can be a bit territorial, so putting a mammal in the competition did cause a bit of a flap,” said Laura Keown, a spokeswoman for Forest & Bird. “It has ruffled some feathers.”

       She pointed out that the threats faced by New Zealand’s bats are the same as those of the country’s birds: climate change, habitat loss and introduced predator species.

       Adding a bat to the competition was a “curveball,” she said, but it did help get even more people engaged in helping protect native animals: A record 58,000 votes were cast, with the bat emerging as a clear winner — nearly 3,000 votes ahead of last year’s winner the kākāpō, a fat, flightless parrot found only in New Zealand.

       The voting closed Sunday night, which fittingly was Halloween, and the winner was announced Monday.

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       Some commentators pointed out that the pekapeka — unlike many of New Zealand’s best-known birds such as the kākāpō and kiwi — actually can fly. The pekapeka roosts in trees and has a wingspan roughly the size of a hand. It is one of two bats in the country and one of the rarest mammals in the world.

       Others joked that “bats are jumping on the rebranding wagon” amid theories about how the novel coronavirus could have originated in the animals.

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       “It is a bummer that the first thing people think of when they hear ‘bat’ is a global pandemic,” Keown said, adding that altering bats’ bad rap globally wasn’t the primary motivation for including the New Zealand species in the competition. “We weren’t really thinking of our native bats in the context of covid-19. They are so cute and innocent.”

       Read more:

       An island nation’s audacious effort to save its unique wildlife

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