麻豆约拍

For a short while, it looked like every bird's dream come true. The Little Spotted Kiwi, who can't fly, and so has to live behind fences to survive predators like stoats and cats, shot to the top of the leaderboard in New Zealand's prestigious 'Bird of the Year' competition. But it turns out that its success was all down to cheating. Organisers have now discarded 1,500 of its votes after they were all traced back to the same IP address in Auckland.

And in another controversial move, the frontrunner, the Kakariki or Orange-fronted parakeet, declared itself the winner even before voting ended. Organisers reacted firmly, tweeting: "We're going to Count. Every. Vote."

Megan Hubscher is spokesperson for Bird of the Year and explains how the scandal unfolded.

"They're running under the banner 'the orange face you can trust'... but other birds have called for every vote to be counted and that's exactly what we're going to do, except for the fraudulent votes of course."

(Photo: Little Spotted Kiwi. Credit: Getty Images)

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