New Zealand’s prime minister yesterday joined a chorus of Kiwis complaining about the treatment of their national bird by a Miami zoo.
New Zealanders have been appalled by revelations that Zoo Miami allowed visitors to pet one of the shy nocturnal animals under harsh lights.
Zoo Miami on Tuesday issued an apology and said it had scrapped the interactive pet-a-kiwi experience, but not before videos of a kiwi named Paora being stroked went viral.
Photo: AFP
“The zoo [has] immediately taken steps to address the concerns that were raised,” New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said.
“They have acknowledged that what they were doing wasn’t appropriate or wasn’t right or wasn’t fair to the kiwi,” he added. “I thank them for taking it seriously.”
Millions of kiwis used to roam before Western settlers arrived on the shores of New Zealand, where only about 70,000 are left in the wild.
The Zoo Miami bird is only one of about 60 kiwis housed outside of New Zealand, the New Zealand Department of Conservation said.
Kiwis are part of Maori mythology in New Zealand, where there was fierce condemnation of Paora’s treatment.
“It is obviously very clear your team [at Zoo Miami] is not equipped and has no clue how to care for this national treasure. Return Immediately, Paora,” one person wrote on Twitter.
“Sell kiwi toys if you want to fundraise! This is unethical and cruel,” another user wrote.
In a statement, Zoo Miami said the “concerns expressed have been taken very seriously.”
“Effective immediately, the Kiwi Encounter will no longer be offered,” it added.
“It’s especially painful to all of us to think that anything that has occurred with Paora ... would be offensive to any of the wonderful people of New Zealand,” it said.
The zoo said it planned to build “a special habitat” for Paora to teach visitors about “the amazing kiwi” without direct contact.
Zoo Miami hatched the bird, which is named after Moari iwi leader and environmentalist Paora Haitana.
Haitana told Radio New Zealand that it was “a huge concern” to hear of his namesake’s treatment.
“It’s our signature, we’re known as the kiwi, so it goes against everything the bird was given to them for,” Haitana added.
The New Zealand Department of Conservation said it would contact Zoo Miami to “share our expertise and high standards for the respectful care of kiwi.”
A spokesperson added that they also planned to raise the matter with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, of which Zoo Miami is a member.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) removed former minister of foreign affairs Qin Gang (秦剛) from his post after an investigation concluded that he had conducted an affair and fathered a child while serving as ambassador to the US, the Wall Street Journal reported. Top officials were told in August that a CCP inquiry into Qin uncovered “lifestyle issues,” the newspaper reported yesterday, citing people familiar with the situation that it did not describe. That phrase usually means sexual misbehavior of some type in the parlance of Chinese officialdom. Two of the people said the affair led to the birth of a child in
GUNNED DOWN: The Canadian PM said there were credible allegations that India was connected to the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey on June 18 India yesterday dismissed allegations that its government was linked to the killing of a Sikh activist in Canada as “absurd,” expelling a senior Canadian diplomat and accusing Canada of interfering in India’s internal affairs. It came a day after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described what he called credible allegations that India was connected to the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an advocate of Sikh independence from India who was gunned down on June 18 outside a Sikh cultural center in Surrey, British Columbia, and Canada expelled a top Indian diplomat. “Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a
SECURITY: Wang met with the US national security adviser in Malta over the weekend, with the US side noting the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) yesterday headed to Russia for security talks after two days of meetings with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan over the weekend in Malta. China’s top foreign policy official will be in Russia until Thursday for a round of China-Russia strategic security consultations, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a brief statement. The US and China are at odds over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. China has refrained from taking sides in the war, saying that while a country’s territory must be respected, the West needs to consider Russia’s security concerns about NATO’s
LOST BATTLE: The Varroa mite, which Canberra has called the ‘most serious pest’ to face bees, would cause serious economic damage, an ecologist said Australia yesterday abandoned its fight to eradicate the destructive Varroa mite, an invasive parasite responsible for the collapse of honeybee populations across the planet. Desperate to keep Varroa out of the country, authorities have destroyed more than 14,000 infected beehives since the tiny red-brown pest was first detected north of Sydney in June last year. The government said its US$64 million eradication plan could not stop the mite from spreading, and the country’s beekeepers should now prepare to live with the incursion. “The recent spike in new detections have made it clear that the Varroa mite infestation is more widespread and has
RSS