Friday 20th November 2015

1080 Forest Drop Should Be Stopped

DoC are currently preparing the NZ public for another massive aerial 1080 poisoning of our forests in winter 2016, supposedly in response to yet another beech mast.

Masts or good flowering years of beech trees and other native plants are normal sporadic events. Some native birds only breed in mast years, it’s the way of nature, fluctuations of populations in response to food supply and environmental conditions.

The same natural fluctuations occur with introduced species.

Last years Battle for the Birds poisoned an area the size of Taranaki supposedly in response to a beech mast and rat plague. The beech mast was light to moderate in most areas, and rat numbers in high altitude areas were at zero at the time of the 1080 drop in many areas.

1080 is a cruel inhumane poison that effectively chemically strangles it’s victims to death over many hours for the birds or days for large mammals.

1080 kills a fair percentage of all animals (insects, birds and mammals), but rats are the fastest to recover and remain at higher levels in poisoned areas.

DoC’s Graeme Elliot tells us “The 1080 drop in 2014 killed four Keas and led to the death of Rock Wrens”

It wasn’t just 4 kea, it was 4 kea wearing radio transmitters, 10% of the radio tagged kea, in previous poisoning drops DoC have managed over 30% kill on kea.

If 4000 kea were exposed to last years massive drop, DoC killed 400.

On Jan 17th this year, DoC reported 25 of the 39 monitored rock wren had disappeared since the drop in Kahurangi National Park, that’s a staggering 64%.

If there was 1000 rock wren in Kahurangi, DoC potentially killed 600 of this endangered species.

There was no rats recorded in rock wren habitat, DoC’s own Compulsory Standards prevents 1080 drops unless rat monitoring is at 20%. The only exception to the Compulsory Standard is expert judgement of benefit to the birds. Nelson’s DoC conservator said “ The technical advice was given verbally and therefore a copy can not be made available”

DoC have received $3.5 Billion of taxpayers money in past decade, and not a single native bird species is in recovery on mainland NZ.

DoC’s Graeme Elliot says it’s “1080 or nothing”, for kea and rock wren, nothing is probably the better option.

But for $350 Million per year targeted to Conservation, we should expect a lot better than nothing.

ends

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