by Ben Hope
The Department of Conservation is ramping up its war on pests but has run into controversy over one of its first projects. The video called “Marjorie’s helping. Are you?” depicts a woman in a fur hat sipping tea before firing a .303 rifle at a possum in a pōhutukawa tree.
But the New Zealand Deerstalkers Association has made a complaint on Wednesday, arguing the video showed unsafe firearm use and could breach the department’s own rules.
However DOC deputy director-general of public affairs Sia Aston defended the “Always Be Naturing” campaign after early criticism of the video. The campaign seemed designed to counter the public’s reported opinion that the environment is fine.
The campaign is a partnership over three years with Deloitte Digital. Reportedly “big business”, including Air New Zealand, Fulton Hogan, Dulux, Meridian, One New Zealand and Genesis have already signed on.
But DoC’s Sia Aston said the video was “just a a bit of fun with the message that nature is under threat from pests and other pressures.”
She confirmed in a Stuff new item that the intention was “not just to change the beliefs and perceptions, but drive action so that we can get impact.”
But reaction from the public has been variable.
Taxpayer money
National president of the NZ Deerstalkers Association Callum Sheridan questioned on “The Platform” as to taxpayer money going into the “Always Be Naturing” campaign.
He was more concerned at the poor message on firearm safety saying that DoC should know better.
“The video send a bad message on firearm safety shooting a .303 rifle from a verandah,.”
Corporate Cash
“The sky’s the limit,” Sia Aston said when asked how much funding was required. The full cost has been estimated at more than $2b.
Big businesses, including Air New Zealand, Fulton Hogan, Dulux, Meridian, One New Zealand and Genesis had already signed on.
Andi Cockroft chairman of the Council of Outdoor Recreation Associations said he was disappointed in DoC using taxpayer money and luring big businesses into such a poorly conceived campaign.
“It’s a new low for DoC in their ongoing anti-exotic phobia. DoC has completely lost it way,” he said.
Resource Not Pest
Hunting author and conservationist Tony Orman said the department choose to ignore scientific advice and seemed intent on demonising the possum.
“The possum is a resource not a pest. It’s fur is 30 times the value of crossbred wool and its meat has been used in a lucrative pet food venture,” he said.
He said a Landcare Research scientist as far back as 1994 told a DoC “Possum Pest” workshop that the department’s 70 million possum population estimate was “the back of a cigarette pack calculation” and that the possum was not a “rapacious”consumer of foliage.
“Yet for over 30 years since, DoC is still hard at it mounting a hate-the-possum pest campaign, even treating school children to misinformation,” said Tony Orman. “And ignoring scientific advice.”
North Otago conservationist Lewis Hore said after seeing the interview with NZDA president Callum Sheridan, he was disappointed.
1080
“I’m surprised Callum Sheridan did not mention DoC widespread use of 1080 poison, when the opportunity arose, and call the department to order over a more dangerous weapon used on so called pests 1080 poison, classified as a super toxin and being spread all over much of NZ.
On Facebook other comments referring to the recent controversial video mentioned DoC’s use of 1080.
One was “DOC used 1080 poison in our area last December. Killing hinds just as they had dropped their fawns. Leaving little fawns to starve. I am a farmer…it’s important to keep our deer numbers down.… But poisoning at that time of the year is sadistic and cruel.”
Where is the Minister iof Conservation? What’s his name? He/she is AWOL.
We need a strong Minister to haul DoC into line. Waste of public money.
It’s a basic fact that you don’t hunt or shoot possums with a high powered rifle as a .303
It is dangerous to shoot any firearm in the vicinity of a dwelling of any sort, including bush huts. I suggest that DoC hires professional advisors when seeking to manage animal pests. Doc has clearly demonstrated that they have no such professionals in-house.
When I lived on the West Coast in an area where DOC were 1080 carpet-bombing directly over a local drinking water intake, I asked the local 1080 contractor about the safety of that that supply. “No problem”, he said. “There’s a layer of shingle over the intake point”. As far as he was concerned that was the end of the matter. And that pretty well sums up the whole DOC and their contractors’ flippant attitude towards poisoning the environment and everything that lives in it.
Now they regard firing rifles from verandahs as a bit of harmless fun.
I recall years ago seeing a photo of one 1080 manufacturer’s safety warning on their packaging. It stated that after every 1080 drop all untouched baits should be recovered. What a farce the whole attitude towards safety has become. And still New Zealand, with a tiny percentage of world land mass, uses over 90 percent of world 1080 production to supposedly eliminate an imagined pest threat which exists only in the minds of politicians and their career-ambitious bureaucrats.
Ugh, held my nose to vote National at the last election despite limp policies around the outdoors and rec fishing because of the existential threat posed by another three years of the looney left. Looking increasingly likely that the Coalition is a damp squib, limp and floppy, listless and lost and worst of all – sold to the highest bidder. The so called Min of Hunting and Fishing turns out to be the Min of doing over Hunters and Fishers and the Shane Jones, nominally Min of Fisheries is an industry shill. Now we have both a sucking kumara economy AND a crisis in the amenities that make living in our low wage economy worthwhile (for me the hunting and fishing!). Too many people make too much money from the invented “Possum are a Pest” hoax that it can’t stop. Over the decades we are now into the billions of dollars spent on their “control” and more money is always the answer to the repeated failures to control. The harder you fail, the more money you get, now there is an incentive for you! They are boring us to death.
The DoC is law unto themselves and nothing will change that.
You would think DOC would run any proposed new advertising material past some expert opinions.
There’s nothing potentially harmless nor fun about shooting possums off our verandahs with .303 rifles.
Imagine if we all started doing it? There’d be high-powered projectiles whizzing all over the place.
Each to their own .. but subsonic .22 is a far more effective and fit-for purpose tool to use on a possum.
To the best of my knowledge possums only come out at night.So it’s ok to now discharge a firearm after daylight on DOC land.also firearm safety is a serious matter not a lighthearted fun thing .DOC are giving a clear message backed by there signed up sponsorship it ok to shoot after dark up a tree with a high power rifle .
DoC’s lack of simple knowledge is appalling. They don’t understand food chains and side effects. They don’t seem to know that deer give birth to fawns in late November and December. DoC is ignorant but guilty of gross animal cruelty.
Ignorance is no defence in a court of law,