Trappers hope to snare Govt cash
$20m available to develop predator control methods to reduce 1080 use
An anti-1080 group working with the Department of Conservation (DOC) and Ngati Whakaue has welcomed the Government’s announcement of $20 million for the expansion of predator-control methods.
OCB’S Outcasts is a Rotorua group seeking and sharing 1080 alternatives. The self-funded group believes funding would make it more effective.
On Monday, Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage announced the Government would spend $20m through the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) to develop and expand predatorcontrol methods to reduce 1080 use.
OCB’S Outcasts member Dredge Judge said the group was working alongside organisations to prove trapping and other alternatives could be used instead of 1080.
“We’ve been told to come up with alternatives and to prove their worth,” Judge said.
“I’ve been trapping for years, most of our members have, so we speak from experience.”
He said the group had been working with Nga¯ti Whakaue for six months and in May would work with iwi members to set traps in a 1000ha block. “We’re teaching them to trap and other eradication methods with the aim their forests can be 1080-free,” Judge said.
With some of the PGF funding, members could put more money into traps and time teaching people how to use them.
The $20m has been provided to Predator Free 2050, a Crown-owned company, to contract various projects to improve predator-eradication tools and technologies.
Sage said new types of traps, surveillance and data-management technologies, lures and remotesensing tools could be among innovations produced. She and Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones made the funding announcement at native wildlife sanctuary Zealandia.
“The new approach will focus on maintaining predator-free environments using innovative techniques once initial eradication in the project areas has been achieved,” Jones said. “This will reduce the need to use 1080 to maintain predator-free status in these areas.”