The native parrot the kea is under siege from aerial spread 1080 poison drops says a West Coast wildlife advocate Laurie Collins of Westport. While it is accepted that a good proportion of New Zealanders are opposed to aerial 1080 poison drops used as an “animal control” tool in New Zealand, several aspects detrimental to wildlife, are ignored he maintained.

"Virtually totally ignored is the “carbon footprint” of the helicopter that is flying over very ecologically sensitive areas,” Laurie Collins said. "Nor is the public made aware of how many highly poisonous pellets actually end up on the ground.”

Laurie Collins as a young forestry trainee in the late 1950s, worked on the first trials of 1080 in the Greenstone valley, Lake Wakatipu and then the subsequent use of the toxin. Following NZ Forest Service employment he was engaged in “pest” control work for many years and was a possum trapper other times. He still frequents the mountains particularly in the Lewis Pass area and has witnessed numerous 1080 drops and effects.

Laurie Collins said the amount of 1080 pellets is staggering.

To illustrate, he used the example of aerial 1080 poison drops in the Kahurangi National Park, i.e., north west Nelson, for some basic sums.

"There are eighty-three (83) 1080 pellets in each kilogram of delivered bait. The normal consent for aerial 1080 operations is no more than 5 kgs per hectare. Consider that the Department of Conservation has no logical reason for using aerial 1080 poison for “pest” control, then it can be assumed that the maximum allowable amount of poison is, in fact, what will be used."

Multiplying 83 pellets by 5kgs gives 415 pellets per hectare. The Kahurangi poison drop covered 113,699 hectares.

Then 113,699 multiplied by 415 gives 47,185,085 (47 million) pellets of 1080 poison on the ground.

"To reiterate that is over 47 million - a mind boggling figure,” he said. "If one in every ten thousand pellets kills one native bird, the Kahurangi aerial drop will kill 4,718 of our precious native birds.”

The maximum number of surviving kea in New Zealand is about 5,000 birds according to the Department of Conservation.

"If the population inside Kahurangi National Park is 1,000 kea, then if each kea eats just one of the 47 million pellets which would be available to them, the total Kahurangi kea population will disappear,” he said. "If this is added to the other huge West Coast aerial drops of 1080, then the kea will become extinct."

Laurie Collins said there was too much secrecy shrouding 1080 drops on public lands.

"I believe the public should be made aware of the absolute dishonesty of information as regards pest control and the use of 1080 in New Zealand that is put forward by the department. Two West Coast 1080 drops that took place in late 2022 were over New Zealand’s main kea habitat. It would appear that kea’s survival has no place DOC’s 1080 agenda,” he said..

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