An adventurer on a survival reality TV show said he was driven to eat a protected bird by a “very deep need to eat.”
Spencer “Corry” Jones and teammate Oliver Dev have been disqualified from New Zealand’s Race to Survive after killing and eating a weka, or Maori hen – a plump, flightless brown bird about the size of a chicken.
Whitewater river guides from the United States raced other teams around checkpoints on New Zealand’s South Island with only what they could carry.
In a segment of the show, Mr Jones apologised for disrespecting the country by eating the bird.
“It was short-sighted, it was stupid,” he said, adding that “a very deep need to eat” was behind the rule-breaking.
“We had strategies in place for the race, but we didn’t prepare for hunger,” he explained, adding that “the starvation mode mindset” took over, slowing down their thinking and cognitive abilities.
The New Zealand Department of Conservation issued a written warning to the reality TV show following the incident.
The killing and eating of a weka, a protected species, occurred as Mr Jones and Mr Dev battled the elements to survive and win a grueling race.
The show, produced by Original Productions, sends nine teams of two into the New Zealand wilderness, tasking them with navigating rugged terrain while scavenging for food and water.
The last team to reach a given checkpoint is eliminated until the show finds a winner. The winning team wins $500,000.
In a statement this week, New Zealand’s Department of Conservation said it was aware that “team members were fatigued and suffering from significant hunger, in a situation of unusual group dynamics,” but that killing and eating a protected native species was still “unacceptable.”
Authorities said they had made it clear to the production company that protected species could not be harvested or consumed and had put the show “on notice” of the need to follow conservation rules, Radio New Zealand reported.
The ministry confirmed that the company alerted it to the incident shortly after it occurred.
Race to Survive production said: “Entrants were all carefully briefed in advance and reminded throughout the competition of all New Zealand wildlife rules and guidelines.
“As soon as we became aware of a possible rule violation, we immediately contacted the Department of Conservation and conducted an investigation. It was determined that a competitor had indeed violated a rule, so appropriate action was taken and the team was disqualified from the competition.”
On its website, the association warns that competitors “will have to endure physical suffering” to win the prize. “Duos must choose between the quickest or safest route to cross the finish line,” it says.
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