Cautionary tale of 1080

Once upon a time there were two islands in the sea. They were green and peaceful, full of birds.

Then a new species turned up — homo sapiens, humans.

Things changed a bit, as they were huntergatherers. The biggest of the birds was very easy to hunt and soon the last one was eaten. But the humans were thriving anyway and named the islands Aotearoa after the long white cloud often seen on the horizon.

Then one day a big ship arrived with many humans on board. These people were different, they considered themselves civilised. They looked at the clean, green country and said “let’s move in here and show how it should be done”.

And they brought with them sheep, goats, cows and horses. Also deer, possums, rabbits, dogs and cats. Then they considered the rabbits were breeding too fast and introduced a virus to kill them. Some of them died by bleeding to death. Also ferrets were brought in to kill the rabbits, but they found the birds easier prey. The possums were hunted for the fun and meat.

But then the humans with the power said there were too many possums, hunting didn’t work and a different method was needed. Poison.

Overseas a dangerous poison had been invented, meant as an insecticide, but was found to kill everything big and small. It was called 1080. It was made illegal almost everywhere. But the people with power got excited — ‘that’s what we need’.

“Let’s drop it from the air and kill the possums.” And so they tried. After more than 60 years of use it had killed cows, horses, deer and many dogs — not only possums .

Also some birds had a go at the poison and the forest became silent. Then the people with the power said ‘we are not using enough.

Let’s increase the amount and the strength.’

Possums got the blame for eating birds and spreading TB to bovines.

Many hunters just gave up, they might lose their dogs and didn’t dare eat the meat.

The people that wanted 1080 stopped were told they didn’t understand, they were also accused of threatening behaviour towards the people that were spreading the poison. The two islands are no longer clean and green. They are full of animals dying in agony.

ANITA LASSMAN