Bob Brockie | |
---|---|
Born | Robert Ellison Brockie 1932 (age 90–91) Christchurch, New Zealand |
Occupation(s) | Cartoonist, scientist, columnist, |
Years active | 1975–2018 |
Robert Ellison Brockie MNZM (born 1932 in Christchurch) is a New Zealand cartoonist, scientist, columnist and graphic artist.
He was an editorial cartoonist for the National Business Review from 1975 to 2018, specialising in political satire. As a biologist he is interested in animal populations, animal behaviour and diseases and did his PhD on hedgehog ecology. He has published material on butterfly evolution in Sicily, behaviour of sparrows, magpies, possums, starlings, mange mites, animal roadkill, flax flowering, cabbage tree disease.
He was science columnist for Wellington's Dominion Post newspaper from 2001 to 2018. [1]
Brockie takes a strong interest in refuting popular myths, like danger to humans from 1080 poison used to control possum populations. [2]
Brockie is a member of New Zealand Skeptics. [3]
In the 2013 Queen's Birthday Honours, Brockie was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to science and cartooning. [4] He was elected a Companion of the Royal Society of New Zealand, but resigned his companionship in 2022. [5] [6] He has twice been named New Zealand Cartoonist of the Year. [7]
In 2018, Brockie was dropped from the Fairfax Media chain and the National Business Review for his positions on the Treaty of Waitangi and climate change. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
The kea is a species of large parrot in the family Nestoridae found in the forested and alpine regions of the South Island of New Zealand. About 48 cm (19 in) long, it is mostly olive-green with a brilliant orange under its wings and has a large, narrow, curved, grey-brown upper beak. Its omnivorous diet includes carrion, but consists mainly of roots, leaves, berries, nectar, and insects. Now uncommon, the kea was once killed for bounty due to concerns by the sheep-farming community that it attacked livestock, especially sheep. In 1986, it received absolute protection under the Wildlife Act.
The Dominion of New Zealand was the historical successor to the Colony of New Zealand. It was a constitutional monarchy with a high level of self-government within the British Empire.
The monarchy of New Zealand is the constitutional system of government in which a hereditary monarch is the sovereign and head of state of New Zealand. The current monarch, King Charles III, acceded to the throne following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on 8 September 2022 in the United Kingdom. The King's elder son, William, Prince of Wales, is the heir apparent.
Murray Hone Ball was a New Zealand cartoonist who became known for his Stanley the Palaeolithic Hero, Bruce the Barbarian, All the King's Comrades and the long-running Footrot Flats comic series. In the 2002 Queen's Birthday and Golden Jubilee Honours, Ball was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services as a cartoonist.
The New Zealand Herald is a daily newspaper published in Auckland, New Zealand, owned by New Zealand Media and Entertainment, and considered a newspaper of record for New Zealand. It has the largest newspaper circulation of all newspapers in New Zealand, peaking at over 200,000 copies in 2006, although circulation of the daily Herald had declined to 100,073 copies on average by September 2019. Its main circulation area is the Auckland region. It is also delivered to much of the upper North Island including Northland, Waikato and King Country.
Sodium fluoroacetate, also known as compound 1080, is an organofluorine chemical compound with the formula FCH2CO2Na. This colourless salt has a taste similar to that of sodium chloride and is used as a rodenticide.
Thomas Joseph Scott is a New Zealand cartoonist. In the 1990s, he won New Zealand Cartoonist of the Year six times, and won the award again in 2009.
The independence of New Zealand is a matter of continued academic and social debate. New Zealand has no fixed date of independence from the United Kingdom; instead, political independence came about as a result of New Zealand's evolving constitutional status. The concept of a national "Independence Day" does not exist in New Zealand.
Eric Walmsley Heath is a New Zealand artist, illustrator, and cartoonist.
Sir Edward Michael Coulson Fowler was a New Zealand architect and author who served as mayor of Wellington from 1974 to 1983.
1080, the brand name given to the synthetic form of sodium fluoroacetate, is used in New Zealand in efforts to control populations of possums, rats, stoat and rabbits, which are invasive species in the New Zealand environment. Although the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment deemed the use of 1080 in New Zealand "effective and safe" in a 2011 re-evaluation and the substance is widely considered to be the most effective tool currently available for controlling possums over large areas, it remains a contentious issue, with the majority of the debate occurring between conservationists and livestock farmers on one side and hunters and animal-rights activists on the other.
Rosemary Margaret McLeod is a New Zealand writer, journalist, cartoonist and columnist.
The common brushtail possum was introduced from Australia to New Zealand, where it has become invasive and a major agricultural and conservation pest.
The European hedgehog was brought to New Zealand by British colonists in the 1870s to remind them of their homeland. They have spread throughout the country, being absent only in inhospitable environments. The general public has a benign attitude to them but conservationists and regional councils regard them as pests, as they prey on native animals and compete with them for food.
Nevile Sidney Lodge was a New Zealand cartoonist. He was cartoonist for Wellington's Evening Post for over 40 years, as well as the New Zealand Truth, the Listener, and the New Zealand Free Lance.
Cats are a popular pet in New Zealand. Cat ownership is occasionally raised as a controversial conservation issue due to the predation of endangered species, such as birds and lizards, by feral cats.
Sharon Murdoch is a cartoonist born in 1960 in Invercargill, New Zealand. She is the first woman to regularly produce political cartoons for New Zealand mainstream media, and draws the cartoon cat Munro who accompanies the daily crossword in Fairfax newspapers. Murdoch has won New Zealand Cartoonist of the Year three times: 2016, 2017 and 2018.
James Robert Lynch is a New Zealand cartoonist and conservationist.
Akatarawa Forest is a regional park in the Upper Hutt within the Wellington Region at the southern tip of the North Island of New Zealand. It encompasses 15,000 hectares of native and plantation forest. It includes the headwaters of the Maungakotukutuku Steam, Akatarawa River West and the Whakatīkei River.
Ian Fraser Grant is a New Zealand historian, writer, editor and publisher. He founded the New Zealand Cartoon Archive in 1992 and has written widely on the history of cartooning in New Zealand.