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Supporters of the kakariki karaka - a green parakeet - put up billboards reading: "Dear John, don't disrupt the pecking order".

Meanwhile, a conservationist who is backing another bird, the kākāriki karaka, has told Radio New Zealand in a tongue-in-cheek interview that Mr Oliver's support for the pūteketeke reminded him of previous election meddling in the US.

In Te Karaka, a small town near the east coast, 500 people were forced to evacuate early Tuesday morning.

According to her son-in-law Harold Karaka, Mooren asked to be buried in the same cemetery as her mother in Northfield, Ohio.

At least 150 orange-fronted parakeets, known locally as kakariki karaka, were born in the wild this season.