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A crowned Northern Royal Albatross by Lenina Villela of Artists & Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN) for the inaugural World Albatross Day on 19 June 2020
Voting for New Zealand’s Bird of the Year 2026 (BOTY, Te Manu Rongonui o te Tau in Te Reo Māori) starts today at 09h00 NZST. Since inauguration in 2005, New Zealanders, and the rest of the world, have been invited to choose their favourite bird, this year out of a list of 7l that occur in New Zealand. ACAP Latest News will be voting for the Endangered Northern Royal Albatross Diomedea sanfordi in the hope that an ACAP-listed species can be crowned the BOTY winner for the first time in 22 years of the competition.
A breeding pair of Northern Royal Albatrosses at Taiaroa Head/Pukekura in 2025/26
As in previous years, “champions” have been appointed to encourage votes for their favourite bird. The Royal Albatross Centre has taken the lead for the Northern Royal Albatross, with Libby Manning, an award-winning guide and educator at the centre, as Campaign Manager, Libby wrote earlier to ACAP Latest News: “Bird of the Year is an opportunity for people to back their favourite native New Zealand birds. Voters get to pick from five native species, and while there is no official prize for the winner the competition generally raises quite a lot of media and awareness. Albatross have never won Bird of the Year before, and this year the Northern Royal Albatross [Toroa ingoingo] is debuting, replacing the Antipodean Albatross. The competition is open to anybody with a valid email address, and we are hoping to get seabird lovers across the world behind our campaign to raise awareness for albatross ecology, threats, and conservation.”
This year the candidates have been grouped into six categories or “parties” - Tree Birds, Sea Birds, Shore Birds, Floor Birds, Shy Birds, and High Birds. A vote for each bird will also count as a vote towards their wider party. Libby adds: “So alongside campaigning for albatross[es] we will also be encouraging people to vote for an 'all sea bird' candidate list”.
Two other ACAP-listed species, the Vulnerable Black Petrel Procellaria parkinsoni and the Endangered Westland Petrel P. westlandica, are on the list, as is the Endangered Hutton’s Shearwater Puffinus huttoni, a species that has been regularly featured in ACAP Latest News.
No procellariiform has ever been New Zealand’s BOTY, and only two species of seabirds have made the top step, the Yellow-eyed Penguin Megadyptes antipodes twice (click here).
You can watch a video outlining the voting process from here.
Voting closes on 30 September, with the winner announced the next day.
John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 04 September 2026