Archives For facebook

He’s better looking than Bieber, more charismatic than Clooney and he has some pretty hardcore admirers.

Sirocco at Zealandia. Photo copyright of Janice McKenna.

One handsome bird

Sirocco the kākāpō is our social media superstar and New Zealand’s Official Spokesbird for Conservation. Today he has reached an amazing milestone in his quest for world domination by reaching a massive 100,000 devoted fans on his Facebook page.

This parrot is not just a national treasure, but also an international rock-star with fans from as far away as Serbia and Brazil. Over 6000 of his fans speak Arabic, 7000 speak Portuguese and 140 fans are even fluent in Pirate – arrrrrr me hearties!

Sirocco the rock-star kakapo book.

The rock-star

Through both Facebook and Twitter, Sirocco connects his fans (now over 100,000), their friends (millions of them), and the wider social media community (billions of them) to conservation messages and stories right here in New Zealand.

Sirocco's Facebook page.

100,000 likes

Sirocco’s high-flying career was launched in 2009 off the back of the BBC’s ‘Last Chance to See’ programme, when Sirocco attempted to mate with zoologist Mark Carwardine’s head. Footage of this event has now generated more than 6 million hits on YouTube.

Sirocco on Mark Carwardine's head with Stephen Fry.

Mark and Stephen

In January 2010 Sirocco was officially recognised as a conservation ambassador by the Prime Minister John Key, who named him the “Official Spokesbird for Conservation”. Mr Key said Sirocco would bring attention to the plight of our endangered species.

Sirocco is currently touring the country and will be on show from 19 September – 5 October at the Orokonui Ecosanctuary in Dunedin.

You can become one of Sirocco’s loyal followers over on Facebook and Twitter.

Today, I’m inviting you somewhere special. Not many people know about this place yet – you’re one of the first. The place is called Wildside and it’s a new social media community run by the Department of Conservation (DOC) on Facebook and Twitter.

Wildside Facebook screenshot.

With the tagline Aotearoa New Zealand. Live it. Love it. Look after it. Together. Wildside promises inspiring stories, images, videos and conversations about:

Living on the wildside – tramping, camping, biking, hunting…

Loving the wildside – our places, plants, animals, people…

Looking after the wildside – protecting, restoring… doing our bit.

And, importantly, Wildside is about doing it together.

We didn’t want another place on the web about ‘DOC the government department’. Wildside is for, and about, everyone.

Wildside Twitter screenshot.

Here at DOC we’re working towards making New Zealand the greatest living space on Earth – but this vision isn’t just ours, and we can’t do it alone. We want you to join the journey – and Wildside will be a great place to start. Will you join us?

http://www.facebook.com/wildsidenz

http://twitter.com/wildsidenz