An outdoors author and self-confessed “long-time outdoors activist,” Alan Simmons of Turangi labels the Department of Conservation’s anti-possum program as a dismal failure following a South Island journey which included the West Coast.

By Tony Orman

“Every year the NZ Government spend over $110 million trying to eradicate possums — as well as rats and stoats — using an ecosystem poison. Clearly it is a dismal failure as evidenced by the dead possums on the highway, killed by traffic,” says Alan Simmons. He directs his criticism also at the Zero Invasive Predator programme known as ZIP. 

“ZIP (Zero Invasive Predators) produces zip,” he quips. “The claims by the Department of Conservation and its charity-free sidekick ZIP are just empty words as they try to justify the annual spending over the years of hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars on a dead-loss programme that is just lining people’s pockets without any tangible results.”

He says throughout South Westland squashed dead possums litter the road as clear evidence that the rhetoric boasting of success is “just puffery”. 

The futility of trying to justify 1080 drops

“It’s simply weasel words by spin doctors who with false claims and an ignoring of science are trying desperately to convince the public of the value of 1080 poison drops,” he said.  “The irony of it all is that ZIP pay no taxes but the public fund this mad-capped destruction of the ecosystem.  

If any DOC staff member bothered to stop and pick up all the dead possums along the road he or she would need a big ute or a small truck. 

Alan Simmons says ZIP’s ambition to eradicate predators by 2025 was the catch cry a few years ago, but it is now obvious it has failed miserably and every DOC staff member driving to work and seeing dead road-killed possums must be embarrassed if and when they try to defend the “outrageous spending” on possum control. 

“They are just wasting big sums of public money that could be spent on the struggling health and education sectors,” he adds.

Wasting taxpayers’ money on increasing 1080 drops

Over recent years ZIP and DOC had increased the aerial topdressing of 1080 poison of public lands with a strong focus on the West Coast.

“How many more millions of dollars and thousands of tons of deadly poison do they need to recklessly top-dress over the people’s pristine natural environment to get a few possums?” asks Alan Simmons. “It seems that cars are doing a better job. From Fox Glacier to Wanaka on 30th March I counted 87 dead possums and I’m sure I didn’t count them all.”  

He cites a statement from DOC saying “The Predator Free South Westland project has been working to eliminate possums, rats, and stoats from a 107,000 hectare area bounded by the Southern Alps, the Tasman Sea, and the Whataroa and Waiau (Waiho) Rivers. Initial predator removal has already been completed across 88,000 hectares, with significant benefits for native species.”  

However, Alan Simmons says DOC failed in its mission for very simple reasons. 

• DOC has been told by a Landcare Research scientist at a mid-1990s “Possum/Pest” workshop that its figure of 70 million possums was a gross exaggeration and that even 70 million possums would browse only 15 percent of the forest’s daily foliage production.

• Other reasons for the failure of the saturation of  the West Coast with 1080 are that rats with their incredible breeding ability, bounced back with a population explosion so that 18 months after a drop of the poison, numbers had recovered to pre-poison levels and continued so in three years have tripled. “It’s all there in Landcare Research studies conducted about 15 years ago; one can only assume DOC and ZIP are illiterate or perhaps just chose to ignore science.”

• In addition, stoats are not affected by 1080 drops and can only die by secondary poisoning if they eat a rat struggling as it dies of the slow-to-kill inhumane poison.

He suggests motorists driving the West Coast with a young family could keep the kids occupied in counting dead possums on the road. 

“It would also illustrate to people who actually pay the taxes that their tax dollars are wasted on a bureaucratic failure while people struggle with homelessness or hunger and health and education systems are struggling for adequate funding.”

Alan Simmons says dead possum roadside carnage continues along the South Island East Coast as well. He calls on government, DOC and ZIP to wake up or admit that their poison strategy is not working. 

Possums are a valuable resource

“They should be looking at the possum as a resource for both fur and meat, the latter for pet food manufacture and even as a meat protein for human consumption.”

Alan Simmons points out that some two decades ago, a Bay of Plenty pet food manufacturer utilising possum meat, lost lucrative export markets in south east Asia due to New Zealand’s 1080 topdressing program screening on Japanese television.

“Japan and other countries ban 1080 because of its destructive effect on ecosystems,” he comments.

He adds that the DOC/ZIP/government use of 1080 was killing both insects and birds as the toxin was first patented as an insecticide and the decline in bird populations such as kea, falcons, weka, robins, fantails and others was clear evidence of the destructive, indiscriminate nature of 1080.