1984: New Zealand Bird Rescue

February 9, 2025

By AHNZ

New Zealand Bird Rescue Charitable Trust (est 1984) changed its name in 2022 to BirdCare Aotearoa on 19 July, 2022¹. This, of course, was in the thick of our Aotearoa New Zealand Culture history era. During this period everything in our culture and heritage without very deep roots was blown away in the Winds of Wokery. Institutions were destroyed or had their names changed, statues toppled, forms of energy, medicine, food, and even construction material (ie plastic) were subject to iconoclastic oblivion.

The old charity had been working for many decades, running on private donations of people who wanted to help any birds for the content of their character rather than the colour of their feathers. Within a year of going Woke the new BirdCare Aotearoa was screaming out in national headlines that it was going broke (go figure.) If it didn’t get some money soon it would have to shut down.

Today BirdCare announced their solution. Next week will be the last time they look after anything but an “indigenous” bird. Natives only. Colonial birds will be rejected from care. “..with increasing pressures on funding and native biodiversity, we are taking a bold step to prioritise our efforts to the recovery of Native and Endemic species of Aotearoa New Zealand….From the 19th Feb 2025, BirdCare Aotearoa will only attend to the recovery of native and endemic wild birds..” Ref. Facebook (5 February, 2025)

A fascinating example of a larger trend in our recent history.

“Formed in 1984, the trust supports rescue centres around New Zealand, which care for injured and sick native, non-native and pet birds, and re-home them where appropriate.” –  Encyclopedia of New Zealand

“Lyn Macdonald, of Green Bay in West Auckland, is affectionately known as her area’s Bird Lady…After working voluntarily for the last two decades, she has just been given her first pay cheque, working for the New Zealand Bird Rescue Charitable Trust, as a wildlife rehabilitator.” – NZ Herald (2009)

“Bird Rescue has been gifted a house in Green Bay, and still more volunteers are helping rebuild it as a bird hospital.” – Long-time ‘mother of bird rescue’ dies, NZ Herald (2010)

“BirdCare Aotearoa has launched an urgent appeal to raise more than $100,000 or it risks closure by 2024. It’s the largest bird rehabilitation centre in New Zealand by intake, caring for around 6,000 native and non-native birds each year….” – Stuff et al (August 2023)

“BirdCare Aotearoa is run by a charitable trust that was bequeathed the Green Bay property in 2012 for use as a bird rescue centre.” – NZ Herald (2023)

It would be interesting to know what Auckland bird rescuers like Lyn Macdonald, Sylvia Durrant, or Pam Howlett would have made of BirdCare. Those women educated themselves and put in their time and effort as Anarkiwis rather than as government approved goons. They did the job voluntarily for decades long before it became a corporatised and paying gig to care for animals. Likewise, the patrons who put up their money to help on the understanding that their chosen charity wouldn’t change. From every bird it became wild birds, and now the “strategic focus” will only be on selected native species.

Between 2010 and 2012 New Zealand Bird Rescue Charitable Trust was given an entire house! How the former owner of 74 Avonleigh Road, Green Bay, would feel knowing BirdCare Aotearoa now has an avine apartheid policy?

Those wonderful women looked after birds all their lives, totally self-funded. Yet in less than 1 year of New Zealand Bird Rescue Charitable Trust going Woke as BirdCare Aotearoa it was…going broke!

Something funny might have happened to BirdCare around the time their website changed from birdcareaotearoa.org.nz to dev.birdcareaotearoa.org.nz as the content is a little different. Currently (9/2/2025) the former shows a board of directors (Kevin Ferguson, Anna Schimmel, Paul Stephenson, Raewyn Stone) and the later shows ‘Page not found’.

Naturally the Facebook barometer is furious. They argue that suffering does not discriminate, and all birds deserve care. Some supporters are withdrawing their donations in protest. People on the Facebook thread say the name needs to change. “I hope there will be a name change to reflect this as BirdCare Aotearoa is misleading if only some species will be provided support and others would get refused or put down.” (Maddie Wood.) The thing is that they already DID change their name back in 2022. What do people think it means when something gets Aotearoa’ed up?

Meanwhile, in the Legacy Media, the story angle is different. It focuses on General manager Carl Ashworth’s (Englishman, why are these people changing our culture always foreigners?) worry about an “an escalation of violence…because some of it has been quite disturbing.” While it’s true that New Zealanders get very emotionally invested in animal welfare (rather than their own) this is also pretty good spin. The people who got Lyn Macdonald et al out of the way and corporatised the charity have made the story about Carl the Pom’s worry and distress. Ref. Newstalk ZB news, 5pm 08/02/2025

The economics of looking after hurt birds in a Supercity are dubious to me. The demand seems as infinite as the number of sympathetic women and children, and a few guys too, who take pity on a hurt bird. It seems to me a black hole for money for a business to set itself up as a rescuer and more suited to those old Silent Generation ladies who used to do this work off their own bat. BirdCare, having taken over, now employ 6 managers, one coordinator, an advisor, and 4 assistants. Ref. Our Team

The Department of Conservation will be delighted with the change if, indeed, they are not directly behind it. Their preoccupation during Aotearoa New Zealand Culture has been to turn the country into a former version of itself prior to Anglo colonisation according to their imagination. They have been quite willing to kill unique species to do it (eg the Enderby Island Rabbit.) It must have been bugging the hell out of them that “exotic” birds were dying only to be put back together again by New Zealand Bird Rescue! Not anymore.

This bird business ties in with the greater cultural trend to “decolonise” everything. Not just our institutions and monuments either. Of course “exotic” trees have also been under attack in Auckland as well as “exotic” animals like cows. Ref. 2009: Mt Eden’s Cows Removed, AHNZ

The best result from an Anarchistic point of view would be to let Bird Hussle Ltd. crash and burn the way they say they are. Instead of giving them, or the SPCA, or DOC, super powers over wildlife it should be vested in everyday people to stand up for animals rather than call an 0800 number. We already know it works, it’s what we were doing before!

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1 Ref. The Charities Register, aka Te Rēhita Kaupapa Atawhai

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