A critically endangered black robin from the remote Chatham Islands has won New Zealand’s 2026 Bird of the Year competition, driving a record domestic turnout at the polls that saw roughly one in every 50 Kiwis cast a ballot.
The diminutive native bird, which campaigned under its Māori name karure, claimed the top spot with 25,610 votes, according to final results released by the conservation organization Forest & Bird. The victory marks a dramatic milestone for a species that stood on the absolute brink of extinction nearly half a century ago.
Voting for the 2026 contest officially opened at 9 a.m. on September 4 and closed at 5 p.m. on Sunday, drawing a total of 105,000 votes overall, with approximately 98,920 validated ballots cast. According to Forest & Bird’s Group Manager, Growing Support, Rebecca Hatch, roughly 88 percent of this year’s participation originated within New Zealand.
The domestic surge stands in sharp contrast to the 2023 contest—rebadged as Bird of the Century for Forest & Bird’s centenary—when international campaigns, notably driven by US talk show host John Oliver on behalf of the Australasian crested grebe, pushed overseas participation to 85 percent of a 350,000-vote total. This year’s numbers indicate the competition has settled back into a predominantly domestic affair, eclipsing local turnout figures recorded before John Oliver found it.
### The Close Contest at the Ballot Box
The race for top perch remained competitive throughout the voting window. An early lead was established by the famed flightless parrot, the kākāpō, which topped the first published leaderboard on September 11 with the black robin sitting second. By September 18, the two species had swapped positions, with the karure ultimately securing first place ahead of the kākāpō at 19,445 votes.
The New Zealand falcon, or kārearea, finished third with 17,423 votes, followed by the kea in fourth with 16,511 votes and the takahē rounding out the top five with 14,511 votes.
While individual species vied for the crown, candidates were organized into political parties reflecting their habitats and behaviors. Despite the top three individual birds representing the Shy Birds, Floor Birds, and High Birds parties, it was the Tree Birds that clinched the overall party vote. Capturing 22.9 percent of the total party allocation with 100,793 votes, the Tree Birds coalition elevated 16 species, including underbirds such as the pōpokotea whitehead, mohua yellowhead, and pīpipi brown creeper.
### From Five Birds to a Conservation Milestone
The survival of the black robin is widely regarded as one of the most remarkable recovery stories in world conservation. Native exclusively to the lowland coastal forests of the Chatham Islands—located roughly 800 kilometers east of New Zealand’s South Island—the population plummeted to just five individuals in 1980, with only a single fertile female remaining.
Through intensive intervention by the Chatham Islands community and the Wildlife Service, which later became the Department of Conservation (DOC), the species was pulled back from the edge of extinction. Every black robin alive today descends from that single breeding pair, known as “Old Blue” and “Old Yellow.”
Following decades of active management on predator-free nature reserves, the adult population now hovers around 350 birds.
### Real Estate Constraints and Future Growth
Despite winning the country’s best-known wildlife popularity contest, the species remains critically endangered, and conservationists emphasize that its primary threat is no longer introduced predators, but available habitat.
According to Rebecca Hatch, while the robins currently reside on predator-free islands, those environments are nearing carrying capacity. Department of Conservation monitoring data released in September highlighted that on Hokorereoro, also known as Rangatira or South East Island, the population grew from an estimated 253 birds in 2011–2012 to around 340 ahead of the 2025–2026 breeding season.
However, new DOC modelling indicates that population growth is beginning to taper off as the island approaches capacity, yielding fewer juveniles per breeding female than in previous years. The findings underscore that future population expansion will likely be constrained by available resources unless a third population is established elsewhere.
The Chatham Islands Landscape Restoration Trust, which served as the campaign manager for the karure during the election, points to Pitt Island—situated directly between the two existing nature reserve islands—as a potential site for new habitat development. Conservation work across the Chatham Islands remains critical, given that the remote archipelago supports 20 percent of New Zealand’s threatened bird species.
