U.S. Adventurer Under Fire for Eating Rare Bird on TV Show
He had to do what was required to survive.
New Zealand takes the preservation of their wildlife incredibly seriously. The South Pacific nation is home to tens of thousands of species, many of which can't be found anywhere else on Earth. As a result, ensuring their safety is an utmost priority for the government, and for locals.
With so much lush wilderness, New Zealand's South Island is also an ideal backdrop for Race to Survive, a survival reality competition show airing on USA Network. The show's second season, Race to Survive: New Zealand, featured a team of two American adventurers that found themselves in hot water after one of them killed and ate a rare bird on camera.
The eighth episode showed contestant Spencer "Corry" Jones explaining what led to the desperate decision.
"We did have strategies in place for the racing, but we didn't prepare for hunger," Jones confessed. "There's creatures running around camp that we're not allowed to eat. You get into that mindset of starvation mode and this slowing down of your cognition. It's this mental shift where the thoughts kind of drift a little more and there's this very deep need to eat, and there was this idea: 'Just break the rule.'"
@usanetwork The need to survive got the best of Corry and Oliver. ???? #RaceToSurvive #RealityTV #Competition #Hungry #Survival
♬ original sound - USA Network
Jones and his team partner Oliver Dev were disqualified after producers told them they broke competition regulations. In order to quell his hunger, Jones killed and ate a weka, also known as a Māori hen, a flightless bird similar in size to a chicken. Wekas are native to New Zealand and are currently considered a threatened species.
"I made a mistake," Jones said on the show, per The New York Times. "It was shortsighted. It was foolish."
The episode aired earlier this month, though New Zealand's Department of Conservation issued a statement this week acknowledging what happened. According to Radio New Zealand, the agency understood that while the whitewater raft guides were hungry, it didn't excuse killing and eating a native protected species.
The department confirmed that they were notified of the incident shortly after it happened when they were filming back in October. The show has now been put "on notice" about participants needing to follow local conservation rules.
When trying local cuisine in a new place, this isn't exactly the way to go.