Video: 'Drunk' Pigeon That Falls Off Trees After Too Much Fermented Fruit Is New Zealand's Bird of the Year

A pigeon that is known to get a bit tipsy has just been voted New Zealand's "Bird of the Year" by the Forest & Bird conservation organisation.

Found in both the North and South Islands, the "kereru"—New Zealand pigeon—likes to eat rotting fruit that has fallen from trees. It is this taste for fermented fruit that often makes it so drunk, it has to be taken to wildlife centers to sober up.

Back in 2010, the Native Bird Recovery Centre in Whangarei was inundated with about 60 of the birds which had too much guava and needed to be plied with food to get sober again.

"They were coming in absolutely drunk as can be. It was ridiculous, we were getting people bringing armfuls of these flaming drunk pigeons," the sanctuary's manager Robert Webb told The New Zealand Herald in 2013.

This year, more than 48,000 people voted in the 14th annual competition organized by Forest & Bird, in which the public rated endangered birds. It came top with 5,833 votes, followed by the kakapo on 3,722, and the kaki (or black stilt) on 2,995.

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The kereru, a New Zealand native pigeon, is the country's bird of the year. It is known for its consumption of fermented fruit and is often seen drunk. Ross Land/Getty Images

The keruru is known for its green and bronze plumage, and is indigenous to the South Pacific country. The kereru population is considered stable but is at risk of becoming locally extinct in places where there is not proper control of predators, Radio New Zealand reported.

It is the country's only native bird able to disperse the seeds of certain native large fruit and is described by Forest & Bird as "clumsy, drunk, gluttonous and glamorous."

Some birds in this year's competition even got celebrity endorsements, with actor and comedian Stephen Fry voting for the kakapo and British comedian Bill Bailey backing the takahe.

The kaki even used the dating app Tinder to gain votes, with a bird called Shelly getting 500 matches, Stuff.co.nz reported. There were claims of competition fixing, with Australian IP addresses sending in hundreds of votes for the shag bird, potentially as a joke due to its other slang meaning.

It is illegal to hunt the kereru which used to be hunted for meat and feathers. "The kereru is one of our most recognizable birds, it is often heard before it is seen. It is one of our few birds that is doing OK. Only one in five of New Zealand's native birds are increasing in number or stable, 80% are decreasing. But the kereru is doing pretty well," Forest & Bird spokesperson Megan Hubscher told RNZ.

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