By Carol Sawyer
The spurious justification
Another severe beech mast is occurring across NZ right now. There is also heavy rimu fruiting and tussock seed production in many areas. This is expected to lead to very high rodent and stoat numbers in most public conservation lands from Spring 2019 onwards.
DOC has planned its largest ever predator control program in response. About 1 million hectares will be treated through a combination of aerial 1080 and ground control methods.
Peter Morton, Department of Conservation
Dumping tonnes of poison
Listed below is the Department of Conservation (DoC) program for the coming year as part of the Predator Free 2050 Battle For Our Birds (BFOB), strategy.
They have this ‘terrific’ new method where they drop 4 kg of 1080 baits per hectare, not the usual 2 kg and, if every last rat, stoat, possum isn’t gone, then in three months they drop another 4 kg per ha.
If we assume some of these drops are 4 kg per ha, or even 8 kg per ha, we can safely assume around 4 tonnes of pure 1080 poison will be dropped, contained in the cereal baits. (Each bait contains 0.15% pure 1080 poison.)
This is enough 1080 to kill over 60 million people and make another 60 million people very, very ill! Or, to put it another way, the Nazi Holocaust of World War 2 killed an estimated 17 million people. This amount of poison has the capability of killing almost 4 times that number.
Note : The LD50 (Lethal Dose 50% ) for humans, as declared by our state-owned 1080 bait factory in Whanganui, is 0.7 to 2 mg per kg of bodyweight .
OSPRI are at it, too. It’s important to remember that OSPRI/TBFree will be doing its own slaughter campaign. — OSPRI 1080 ops
Poisoning the land over the next year
Maud Island mouse eradication, TBC, Autumn 2019
Abel Tasman, 9,639 ha, Autumn 2019
Arawhata-Waipara & Hindley, 48,951 ha, Autumn 2019
Arthur’s Pass, 125,798 ha, Autumn 2019
Taranaki Mounga Project, 34,148 ha, Autumn 2019
Kahurangi, 303,601 ha, Winter 2019
Abbey Rocks, 43,003 ha, Winter 2019
Southern Ruapehu, 13,187 ha, Winter 2019
Te Maruia, 65,268 ha, Winter 2019
Arthur/Cleddau, 17,924 ha, Winter 2019
Blue Mountains Mohua, 6681 ha, Winter 2019
Catlins, 31,548 ha, Winter 2019
Clinton/ Eglinton, 37,080 ha, Winter 2019
Dart/Caples, 17,191 ha, Winter 2019
Hollyford, 40,585 ha, Winter 2019
Kepler, 24,264 ha, Winter 2019
Waitutu, 29,353 ha, Winter 2019
Wet Jacket Peninsula, 40,000 ha, Winter 2019
Whirinaki, 39,593 ha, Winter 2019
Matukituki, 18,629 ha, Spring 2019
New Creek, 70,000 ha, Spring 2019
Northern Ruahine, 29,216 ha, Spring 2019
Punakaiki, 35,099 ha, Spring 2019
Landsborough, 46,758 ha, Spring 2019
Makarora – Wilkin, 38,941 ha, Spring 2019
Okarito North South, 18,375 ha, Summer 2020
Roaring Meg, 12,823 ha, Summer 2020
TOTAL = 1,193, 655 hectares = 2,387,310 kg of 1080 baits
Want to know more?
If you would like more detailed information please contact
Peter Morton
Department of Conservation
PO Box 528, Taupo 3351
(027) 542 8306 pmorton@doc.govt.nz