Petrel massacre shows why 1080 needed
The unfortunate fate of seven grey faced petrel chicks, which were killed by a stoat on Karioi Mountain near Raglan, demonstrates very clearly why the illinformed protests of anti-1080 groups must be ignored.
In the last week of November it was discovered that a stoat had managed to evade several traps and killed the chicks in their burrows just weeks before they were due to go to sea.
The Karioi Maunga ki te Moana volunteer conservation group is working to re-establish the coastal mountain as a nesting sanctuary for grey faced petrels and other seabirds and started work in 2009 with predator control operations. Last year the first grey faced petrel chicks for at least a decade were successfully hatched and reared on the mountain.
There can be little doubt that an intensive 1080 operation, in conjunction with existing traps, to control rats, mice and their stoat predators, could have prevented this serious setback. There is also little doubt that such an operation would have attracted the usual outburst of mis-informed and disingenuous nonsense that accompanies all 1080 operations.
It has been explained many times that rat and mouse populations have to be taken out to starve the stoats well before the onset of nesting. It has also been explained a myriad of times in a significant body of peer reviewed science that 1080, as applied in pellet bait form from a helicopter by properly trained operators, poses no risk to water or human health. That has not stopped a growing number of people who loudly demand the end of all 1080 operations regardless of the risk that poses to rare and endangered native wildlife.
New Zealand is one of the very few countries in the world which has no native mammals to protect and is therefore ideally suited to expertly applied toxins to kill introduced pests. These irrefutable facts have been known and explained over many years but no amount of rational discussion or reliable science will change the minds of a few who refuse to accept those facts.
Government is spending several million dollars looking for alternative toxins and methods to 1080 for no other reason than to appease these noisy illinformed dissidents, some of whom have resorted to blatantly dishonest tactics to force a total ban on 1080 before there is something equally effective to replace it.
A few months ago some of these people took legal action and seriously compromised the survival of nesting native birds in the Hunua Ranges by holding up a crucially timed 1080 operation with spurious arguments. More recently others presented a number of dead native birds at Parliament apparently as evidence of 1080 poisoning. It has now been revealed that none of the birds were killed by 1080 and one had been shot.
It is illegal to possess native birds, dead or alive, without a permit and also illegal to shoot them, other than gamebirds in the season. How these people came to have the birds and who shot one has yet to be explained or investigated by authorities. There have also been threats against helicopter operators, Department of Conservation staff and their families by the more extreme elements in the anti1080 movement.
While these people have a precious and important right to oppose the use of 1080 and to engage in protests, that is not a licence to break the law or threaten people and it is high time such stupidity met the just reprisals the law provides.
The reality is that that no other effective toxin exists as by their very nature they are designed to kill targeted organisms and 1080 does that better than anything else known to science. It is without doubt a deadly non-selective toxin but, when used by experts, can be used to target individual species with minimal harm to others and none to humans. Non-target species, such as dogs and farm animals, which have been accidentally killed by 1080 have invariably been in notified operational areas when they should not have been.
This year the early and heavy flowering of native trees suggests there will be a glut of fruit and seeds for rats, mice and possums in most areas of native forests. These increased rodent populations will result in an easily predictable increase in predators such as stoats. They will then turn their attention to defenceless native birds with the onset of the next nesting season unless bold action is taken on Karioi and other places where several native species are on the brink of extinction.
It is simply unconscionable not to use every tool available while there is still time to prevent even more of our native birds disappearing into extinction. This summer should see 1080 used on Karioi with stiff penalties for anyone who tries to illegally intervene.