This week, well, this month, and in honor of County Fair, I thought I would talk about the best fruit AND bird: kiwi. Is it the best though? Yes. Quick warning: Things are about to get crazy and you are going to learn four hours worth of research about kiwis. You will also learn that I think it’s super sad that we’re killing all the animals and I think we should do something about it. With that said….

Ok first, kiwifruits have 42 calories which are somehow way too many and also way too few. Like, take your average man, say Pete Buttigieg. He would have to eat 59.52380952 kiwis to maintain an average weight. And that’s a lot of kiwis. If you ate that many kiwis for a year (not a year with the extra dumb day, but a normal, 365 day, boring year) an average man such as Joe Biden would eat 21,726.19048 kiwis. 

So, kiwis cost $2.18 per pound, according to the United States Department of Agriculture Fruit and Vegetables prices spreadsheet that I downloaded off of their website. And you know what else you can buy for $2.18? Almond Glossy Floor Tile PER SQUARE FOOT at www.shadesofstone.com,.That’s how you know that kiwis are in the big leagues. 

Kiwis are 76 grams each, and so… umm … that math is hard so I’m going to use an individual kiwis price on Target’s grocery store website which is 79 cents. I also left the first review for kiwis and there’s nothing you can do about it. That’s 17 thousand dollars for one year’s worth of kiwis for an average man like Bernie Sanders, which is CRAZY! That’s 160 years of Netflix. 

Which shows you how much VALUE there is in investing in kiwis. If any of you want to start a kiwi farm with me in either China or Italy, let me know. 

Quick reminder: All of the animals are dying, and it’s our fault. We are killing all of the animals and no one is sad enough about this. Parents, tell your kids that they should be sad all the animals are dying. Kids: tell your parents that we should all be sad the animals are dying and stop ignoring it.

Fun fact: I looked up “Italian Kiwi Farms” and the first thing that came up was “Italian town with 7 [people] will receive 80 immigrants,” and I was like, “Good for them,” and I thought you needed to know that. That’s the real journalism here….

Speaking of China, kiwis come from China ORIGINALLY, and are called “Macaque Peaches” because the Chinese monkeys eat them and it’s actually so cute, just like you. 😉 

The kiwi was taken to New Zealand and Australia by the Chinese and then the local people, the kiwis, named the fruit the kiwifruit because they were called kiwis and they ate the fruit and so, BOOM. Kiwifruit. There are also kiwi berries, or Hardy kiwis, which are just kiwis that look like grapes, and there are also golden kiwis which are different because they’re golden.

Also, and this is my favorite part of the entire concept of a kiwi, the seeds are kiwi babies! Like babies of the kiwi. Like, watermelons and apples and peaches and stuff you don’t eat the seeds, but for kiwis, you are eating hundreds of thousands of future kiwi generations because of all the kiwi babies that are getting stuck in your teeth and that’s too much power for an average man such as Vladmir Putin to have.

 And kiwis have, like, genders. There are male and female kiwis, not the bird (which we’ll get to), the plant. They have different flowers and they are both pretty, but the man flowers are prettier than the lady flowers JUST LIKE PEACOCKS OMG PEACOCKS ARE KIWIS CONFIRMED. 

Friendly reminder: ALL OF THE ANIMALS ARE DYING AND IT IS 90% OUR FAULT!

Moving on, Kiwi is the name of the only horse who has ever won the Wellington Cup and the Melbourne Cup, which sounds impressive so…good for him!

Ok, this is super cool. In England, in 1919, a bunch of New Zealand soldiers found a hill and carved, in chalk (which, like, WHAT!), a massive kiwi bird. Like, actually massive, 420 feet, it’s gigantic and beautiful and I seriously think we should take a field trip to see it in Biology. Speaking of kiwi bird….

This is the important part. The kiwi bird. So, the kiwi bird is beautiful. Before we start, look up Kiwi! on Youtube, it’s a masterpiece. Or look up Kiwi Nuggets (shoutout Ms. Donahue) which is, like, addiction but with kiwi birds and that shows you the POWER of a kiwi bird. 

So, the kiwi mother’s eggs take up 20% of their bodies which is superheroic and painful and it shows a lot of commitment. Also, kiwi birds have great senses of smell (just look at that NOSE) but they have really bad eyesight, but since they are nocturnal, they couldn’t really see even if they had good eyesight so it makes sense. Nature is beautiful and fantastic and doesn’t get enough respect.

This is where the story gets sad. According to Mental Floss, in 2016, there was a decrease of 27 kiwis per week. This means the population was decreasing from 70,000 to lower and lower numbers as foreign mammalian predators like dogs and cats took advantage of the kiwi’s flightlessness. Mental Floss said that “only 5 percent of kiwis hatched in the wild will make it to adulthood.” Which is SO depressing, I’m literally weeping. Weeping? Crying. 

Luckily, with the help of some human kindness and conservationist efforts, the kiwi bird has been taken off the endangered species list. But in that same year, 2018, 800 other species went extinct. This is a significant uptick in extinct species from prior years, and most of these extinctions are due to human causes. Even though four of the five species of kiwi are thriving again, the Rowi Kiwi Bird only has 400 individuals left. I think we need to take responsibility and fight to keep the Rowi, and other animals like it, alive. Parker should invest time into the curriculum to teach students what animals are disappearing.

For example, the kiwi started being killed by domesticated dogs and cats, as well as being run over by cars at night. It isn’t fair to the other creatures of this planet to wipe them and their biology from the earth without a second thought. 

The actions we take every day affect the lives of creatures that go back millions of years further than us. The fact that we are even here, that you are one in a chain of thousands of humans and millions of mammals, is miraculous and denying that the billion-year long chain of progression exists for hundreds of other species and wiping them off the face of the earth like they weren’t even here IS NOT OK. 

Scientists have labelled the time we live in as the 6th mass extinction. Human behavior (deforestation, carbon emissions, water contamination) is causing these extinctions. Our behavior is causing the EXTINCTION of hundreds of thousands of species that would otherwise be alive if it were not for us.

When people talk about endangered animals, or extinct animals, I think we wonder, “Why should I care?” Because there is no good answer. At some point, how does it affect my life if the kiwi bird is gone? The truth is, it doesn’t. But if you don’t care, it shows a gap in empathy. You may be able to feel empathy for other humans, but if you don’t hold back tears when thinking about the beautiful kiwi bird disappearing because they were all run over by cars, it shows a lack of empathy. As a school whose hallmark accomplishment is fostering empathy, I ask for us to educate ourselves about the animals disappearing from our planet and mourn them and learn how to stop others from poofing into non-existence. I think it’s time to save the kiwi.