The charge carries a maximum penalty of seven years' imprisonment under the Crimes Act 1961.
New Zealand Police have also released the number of prosecutions for bestiality since July 2014, after another OIA request by the Herald.
There have been nine prosecutions over the last seven years, according to the police data, including two people last year.
There were also two cases in 2018 of "non-court action" taken by police.
No prosecutions have yet gone through the courts this year.
Police say their data counts all proceedings involving at least one "bestiality" offence and "therefore may not have been the most serious offence proceeded against on that occasion".
There have been some shocking bestiality cases in New Zealand history.
In 2015, a 26-year-old man appeared in Manukau District Court facing charges of bestiality dating back to 2005, in Rotorua, Taupo and Tauranga.
He was charged with bestiality with a bull, a cat, a calf, a dead calf and two dogs.
The man was also charged with committing an act of indecency with two dogs and a goat and wilfully mistreating a cat causing it to die by drowning it, as well as one charge of indecent assault against a child in 2004.
And in 2008, a North Canterbury man admitted having sex with a goat.
There was an infamous Truth newspaper poster from the 1970s after allegations of cow bestiality – also from North Canterbury, this time Ohoka, where the headline read: "Cow Poker From Ohoka".
In 1924, the grand jury at Auckland recommended that judges have the power to inflict the punishment of flogging for cases of bestiality.
The national newspaper archive, Papers Past also reveals various instances of Kiwis coming before the courts on allegations of indecency with animals.
Several cases surfaced in the law courts between the 1880s and the turn of the 20th century, spanning the country from Invercargill, Dunedin, Hokitika, Christchurch, Carterton, and New Plymouth.
