To celebrate his ‘hatch-day’ today’s photo of the week is everyone’s favourite spokesbird, Sirocco the kākāpō.
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To celebrate the 99th anniversary of America’s National Parks, US Ambassador Mark Gilbert met with our own ambassador bird, Sirocco the kākāpō.
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He’s better looking than Bieber, more charismatic than Clooney and he has some pretty hardcore admirers.
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!
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.
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.
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.