Hunters Reject DOC Plan for More 1080 Poison

A national hunter’s organisation has rejected a call by the Department of Conservation (DOC) for more 1080 aerial drops because the department suspects a possible beech seed masting year again next summer.

The Sporting Hunters Outdoor Trust (SHOT) said DOC’s call for the continued use of 1080 for rats was ignorant of basic biology and causing heavy ecological damage to the forests.

New Zealand's biggest pest poisoning programme last summer killed 95 per cent of the rats it went after and more evidence shows forests are better off after 1080 drops, said DOC scientist Graeme Elliott.

DOC claimed the benefits of 1080 outweighed the losses of birds.

"The bird species we monitored all benefited from the 1080 drop. A few birds were killed by 1080 but many more would have been killed by the rats and stoats the 1080 killed,” he said.

But SHOT spokesman Bud Jones, of the Wairarapa, said beech seeding had occurred for millions of years while rats (kiore) were introduced by Maori 800 years ago and ship rats at least 200 years ago. Over centuries, nature had adjusted food chains and predator-prey relationships.

"Bird life with dawn choruses were prolific until the last two decades. DOC with carpet bombing 1080 ended that. Any bird declines have happened in the last 20 or so years. Why? Does that not indicate the predator/prey relationship was in equilibrium until DOC disrupted the eco system?”

Bud Jones described 1080 as an ecosystem poison. Many including DOC, did not seem to understand the slow-to-kill poison first developed as an insecticide, was lethal to all life from insects and other invertebrates, to birds and animals.

“It is not target specific. It is ecosystem destruction.”

Bud Jones said after 1080 was dropped, fast breeders such as rats with a female capable of bearing 40 young a year surged back from those inevitably surviving 1080.He said Landcare Research studies research such as Nugent and Sweetapple (2007) and Ruscoe (2008) verified the induced population explosions. Within three years populations can be three times original numbers, creating a mega-rat problem. Incredibly, DOC’s solution to the problem it had created with 1080 was more 1080.

Bud Jones rejected the credibility of DOC scientists.

"DOC’s scientists are in effect, scientists paid to promote department policy. In effect it’s a vested interest in a poison cycle of industrial proportions. No prizes for guessing who pays. It is high time the public switch on to this theft of their tax money and destruction of the wilderness."

Bud Jones rejected the argument that hunters were selfishly only concerned about deer being poisoned.

“I’m a conservationist first and foremost,” said Bud Jones who had received a QSM for his conservation work in creating wetlands. “And yes I’m a selective hunter, a trout fisherman and nature admirer.”

He said he had annually trout-fished the Lewis Pass' Maruia River for 40 years but 1080 drops had been devastating on bird life.

"Bird life was abundant until 1080 made it a forested morgue. 1080 is an eco-tragedy,” he said.

ENDS

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