The tourism board of
Rotorua, New Zealand (a town famous for having a peculiar rotten egg smell caused by sulphur released from nearby geysers and hot thermal springs) announced that scientists from Italy's University of Naples had discovered a positive link between the town's smell and male sexual arousal. As a result, playboy founder Hugh Hefner had decided to convert the Rotorua Museum into his Holiday Mansion. Rotorua Tourism Marketing general manager Don Gunn was quoted as saying that the Playboy Holiday Mansion development would likely raise a few eyebrows in the local community, but that he expected the long-term benefits for local tourism to be huge.
RealClimate.org detailed the work of Dr. Ewe Noh-Watt of the New Zealand Institute of Veterinary Climatology, who had discovered that global warming was caused not by a buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but rather by the decline of New Zealand's sheep population. The reasoning was that sheep are white, and therefore large numbers of sheep increased the planet's albedo (the amount of sunlight reflected back into space). As the sheep population declined, the ground absorbed more solar radiation, thus warming the planet: "It can be seen that the recent warming can be explained entirely by the decline in the New Zealand sheep population, without any need to bring in any mysterious so-called 'radiative forcing' from carbon dioxide, which doesn't affect the sunlight (hardly) anyway — unlike Sheep Albedo."
Noh-Watt also warmed of a potentially destabilizing feedback mechanism: "As climate gets warmer, there is less demand for wool sweaters and wooly underwear. Hence the sheep population tends to drop, leading to even more warming. In an extreme form, this can lead to a 'runaway sheep-albedo feedback,' which is believed to have led to the present torrid climate of Venus."
However, skeptics disputed the Sheep Albedo Hypothesis. Steve Ramsturf, spokesman for the New Zealand Sheep Farmers Guild, was quoted as saying, "Baaah, Humbug. No matter what goes wrong with the world, they're always trying to blame the poor New Zealand Sheep Farmer."
New Zealand's
Southland Times reported that all those attending the Invercargill Civic Theatre would be required to first weigh-in if they wanted to sit upstairs, due to concerns about the ability of the second level to support heavy weight:
'Luckily, Southlanders seem relatively slim and it could be an incentive for some people, including myself, to watch what we eat,' [Mayor Boniface] said. Anyone more than 75kg who wanted to sit upstairs would have to buy two seats, he said. 'However, if you're a man with a petite wife or girlfriend, you might be able to get away with it.' Telephone bookings would still be accepted but customers would have to declare their weight and would be weighed at the theatre.
Phil Shone, a New Zealand deejay for radio station 1ZB, announced to his listeners that a mile-wide wasp swarm was headed towards Auckland. He urged his listeners to take a variety of steps to protect themselves and their homes from the winged menace. For instance, he suggested that they wear their socks over their trousers when they left for work, and that they leave honey-smeared traps outside their doors. Hundreds of people dutifully heeded his advice, until he finally admitted that it had all been a joke.
The New Zealand Broadcasting Service was not amused by Shone's prank. Its director, Professor James Shelley, denounced the hoax on the grounds that it undermined the rules of proper broadcasting. From then on, a memo was sent out each year before April Fool's Day reminding New Zealand radio stations of their obligation to report the truth, and nothing but the truth.
