Nine teams were originally competing for a grand prize of US$500,000 in Race to Survive: New Zealand.
A reality TV show contestant says he ‘disrespected New Zealand’ - Department of Conservation carries out investigation into ‘unacceptable’ weka-eating incident.
Two contestants on a US reality TV series filmed in New Zealand have been kicked off the show after one of them killed and ate a protected weka in the South Island.
Race to Survive: New Zealand contestant Corry Jones has apologised for eating the protected bird, blaming the incident on intense hunger during production of the show, in which nine teams of two compete for a US$500,000 ($831,000) grand prize in an endurance ordeal that’s promoted as “40 days of hell”.
Jones said he had “disrespected New Zealand” and that the incident “doesn’t sit well with me”.
The Department of Conservation launched an investigation following the “unacceptable” incident - the penalty for killing protected wildlife is up to two years in jail or a fine of up to $100,000. Jones and the production company were given written warnings and the company was placed on notice.
Jones and his co-contestant Oliver Dev - both whitewater river guides from Wyoming and among the favourites to win the half-million dollars - were disqualified in episode eight after it was revealed Jones had earlier eaten an unspecified protected species.
The incident itself was not televised but the Herald understands he killed a flightless weka by throwing an object at it at a campsite for the contestants in the Tasman region.
He then ate it.
Weka are described by the Department of Conservation (DoC) as “famously feisty” with a “curious personality”.
An apologetic Jones said after his disqualification: “It is difficult to be in a place where you’re so desperate and hungry and there’s creatures running around camp that you’re not allowed to eat. You get into that mindset of starvation mode and this slowing down of your cognition.
“I knew it was breaking a rule, but that’s not important when you’re hungry. I apologise and it doesn’t sit lightly with me.”
According to a reality TV website, Jones said further: “So, I made a mistake. It was shortsighted. It was foolish, but the competition is very real and the difficulty of this is real. Survival in the bush of New Zealand isn’t easy.
“We did have strategies in place for the racing, but we didn’t prepare for the hunger.”
He apologised. “What I did disrespected New Zealand, and I’m sorry.”
Race to Survive: New Zealand is screening on the USA Network and streaming platform Peacock in the US after being filmed here last year. It is not yet streaming here.
The series consists of nine teams of two competing in staged endurance races for a grand prize of $US500,000 across 240km and “40 days of hell”. The team that finishes last in each survival race is eliminated.
A promotional video for the show outlines the rules, including no provided food.
“You have to forage, hunt, or earn every calorie,” says one contestant, reading out the rules.
DoC investigations team lead Dylan Swain said the agency was aware of the incident during production in October - the production company had alerted DoC soon after it happened.
He called it “unacceptable”.
“We carried out an investigation which included interviewing the cast member responsible,” said Swain.
“Both the production company and the cast member received written warnings from DoC – one of the compliance actions we have available.
“The unique set of circumstances – contestants were fatigued and suffering from significant hunger, in an unusual group dynamic situation – meant we felt a warning letter was prudent.
“Nonetheless, killing and eating a native protected species in this matter is unacceptable and the company is ‘on notice’ about the need for its programme participants to adhere to conservation legislation.”
Swain said DoC took a “dim view” of the incident “and we’ve made that very clear to the production company and the person responsible.”
He said in processing the production company’s application, DoC provided staff “with a significant amount of information on what their permit allowed them and their competitors/cast members to do while filming was done on public conservation land and water.
“The permit included clear conditions stating protected species and plants could not be harvested or consumed.”
Swain said DoC carried out compliance monitoring on productions such as this.
“... and we did so in the days leading up to the weka incident.
“In processing the permission application for this programme, we made the rules and expectations very clear to the production company and stressed the need for the company’s representatives to relay that information to contestants.”
US-based Race to Survive: New Zealand production company Original Productions has been approached for comment.
The show’s executive producer Jeff Conroy told the Decider website last month that the company had to receive permission from DoC and the New Zealand Film Commission to make the show possible in New Zealand.
“Everyone was great and helped us create a race that was incredibly challenging, but also worked within the conservation rules of New Zealand. They know they have an insanely amazing, awesome outdoor wild adventure space and they want to protect it. They’re very strict, and we followed the rules. It was a joy to navigate.”
Decider asked Conroy whose idea it was to introduce the rule that food would not be supplied.
“It came through a lot of discussions as a group where we said, ‘Okay, we don’t want to give them rations because if we give them rations, they just starve themselves and wait for the next ration, so how do we make it more part of the game?’
“Plus, we really wanted the experience to be as real as possible. We didn’t give them food. We just basically said, ‘Look, you decide if you’re going to eat’.
“We also wanted to make their survival skills count. We want the people who are better at survival to have an advantage. I mean, the show is called Race to Survive. So yes, you have to navigate and run and have the skills required by the course, but it’s also Race to Survive. So, we really wanted to push that survival was part of it.”
The reality TV show website realitytea.com commented on the incident: “It seemed like the show intentionally tried to avoid the grisly details, but they’ve mentioned weka birds multiple times throughout the show. They made a point to tell us in previous episodes that they were off-limits.
“You can’t hunt them or eat them, but they’ve been scurrying around survival camp all season long. We’ve seen them causing chaos and tempting everyone with their big juicy bodies. In Episode 4, Corry joked that they looked like they would make a good sandwich.”
Weka are protected on New Zealand’s mainland - they cannot be hunted or eaten without DoC’s permission. They are able to be hunted and eaten on the Chatham Islands.
“Weka populations are subject to large fluctuations,” says the DoC website.
“Populations increase during favourable conditions and decline abruptly when food becomes scarce. Moist islands and those with rich soils support the most stable populations.
“The decline and destabilisation of weka populations on mainland New Zealand, which has resulted in legal protection, has inhibited mahinga kai in modern times. Some iwi today welcome conservation projects that would potentially enable the restoration of harvesting while others believe that the time for harvest has gone. The only place where the legal harvest of weka can occur is on the Chatham Islands and on some islands around Stewart Island.”
In a 2014 article on the Vice website, weka farmer Roger Beattie described the taste of the birds.
“Weka are great! A blend of lamb and chicken, but not greasy like a mutton bird. There’s no reason wealthy tourists could pay $100 a bird on the menu. We pay good money for crayfish. Why shouldn’t we pay good money for birds? The key to sustainably manage bird populations, is to pick one, and that is weka.”
In a podcast last week, Jones again spoke of his intense starvation, impacting on his brain.
“It’s hard to capture the brutality of being that hungry for so long.”
While they had trained for the event, nothing had prepared them for the gruelling New Zealand environment.
“I think I would [do the show again] because they wouldn’t have it in New Zealand if they did it again.”
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.
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