special report
A wildlife researcher and conservationist on the West Coast Laurie Collins is deeply concerned at the numerous aerial 1080 drops currently being carried out by the Department of Conservation from north to south Westland.
“DoC is dropping it everywhere,” Laurie Collins. ‘It’s ecologically destructive and it’s costing heaps, money that could be going into the struggling health sector, or true conservation issues like wilding pines.”
The department has dropped 1080 poison over public lands during the past several months. Among the areas are the Arawhata Valley (84,000 hectares) in south Westland to 235,000 ha Kahurangi National Park in north Westland. Other areas poisoned are Lewis Pass (43,000 ha) and the Clarke/Wills/Landborough valleys (55,000ha) .
Laurie Collins knows 1080 only too well. When he began his working career as a New Zealand Forest Service trainee he worked on the first trials of the poison in 1958 on fallow deer in the Greenstone and Caples Valley. In subsequent years in pest work he worked with 1080 but became increasingly aware of its volatile and destructive nature.
“It’s a cruel poison, taking anywhere one to two days to kill a possum. Animals undergo horrific convulsions and pain. In contrast, cyanide is an instant humane killer. Besides DOC is ignoring sound science in its obsession to spread 1080.”
Laurie Collins said DOC’s efforts to poison rats ran counter to scientific studies. After an aerial 1080 drop, surviving rats (often about 10 percent of the original number) rebounded strongly and bred furiously. Studies have shown at 18 months and in some cases just 12 months, rat numbers had recovered to original levels. The momentum of the upsurge continued so that three years later, there were three times more rats than before poisoning.
“DOC blames beech tree mast years when seeding occurs every four or five years, for upsurges in rats. Mast years have been happening for millions of years. Yes rat numbers will increase in a mast year but naturally fall in non-mast years. It’s just a simple knowledge of nature’s cycles, knowledge which DOC doesn’t seem to have.”
1080 was first patented as an insecticide in 1927 so it kills insects vital to the food chain and birds which ingest it. Birds such as kea, more pork, robins and others are killed too.
Laurie Collins said the cost of 1080 drops was probably about $3 million each.
“That money would be far better spent on our struggling health and education sectors or environmental issues like wilding pines,” he said.
“Why don’t MPs wake up to the shambles?” he added.
Yes, DOC has saturated the West Coast with 1080. It’s not the first time. They keep coming back every few years, as Mr Collins says, to poison again. Don’t politicians see the senselessness not forgetting the lateral by-kill of native birds and insects?
What does Ms Pugh, West coast MP think?
We know former West Coast MP Damien O’Connor loves 1080.
Bravo Laurie Collins. Well spoken.
DoC’s 1080poisoning is just setting the ecosystem up for bigger rat outbreaks.
How many decades has 1080 been used for with no positive results as according to DoC claims many bird species are at the point of extinction or becoming endangered obviously 1080 is not working.
I’ve been following health politics for 35 years now so the blind dogma which politicians and bureaucrats apply to 1080 no longers surprises me.
It’s much the same with putting an industrial waste product in our drinking water
and calling it a dental health improver.
The only way anyone can “justify” these agendas is by ignoring the documented evidence which shows that so many of their ideas are seriously flawed.
As the folk song has it, “When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?”.
Kea are now rarer than black rhino. If DOC doesn’t stop, kea will go extinct here. Then the only hope for the species is breeding programs that have shown success in overseas zoos.
Yet another experienced outdoorsman frustrated with the ignorance and incompetence of doc staff.
My working life was spent in the vertebrae pest management industry and I agree 1080 is being over used and for the wrong reasons targeting inappropriate animals. The so called pest problem is being overstated to keep incompetent people in jobs and misguided politicians are agreeable to keep poison factories churning the stuff out. When our overseas markets find out the truth this country will no longer be regarded as a producer of pristine products.