A DISCUSSION ON NEW ZEALAND CONSERVATION & ISSUES AROUND 1080 by GEOFF BOOTH

Today I want to discuss some issues around the New Zealand Conservation topics that are currently in hot debate here in NZ. These issues are close to the heart of every Kiwi and I believe that it will require thoughtful and constructive policy by the next government that leads NZ into a prosperous future in terms of economics and conservation.

BACKGROUND:

I will give you some background here of myself and will leave it to you, the reader, to decide if I am qualified enough to add value to the discussion. I am sure that you will find that I do.

I am currently employed in the Agricultural Chemicals Sector and do not represent any group or body either public or private pertaining to the issues I wish to discuss with you. My most immediate previous role has been several years in the agricultural fertiliser industry. Prior to that, significantly in pest control and biosecurity.

In 1998 I graduated from Otago University with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Botany and plant Ecology. While Botany was my major I did considerable ecological study alongside the plant sciences as it was my primary passion.

However, I have found at 43 that my Botany degree opened more doors in the private sector and with better financial remuneration than Ecology would have, where much of the employment is within DoC or similar groups.

My background in NZs wild game is extensive. My hunting career began as a 5 year old with dad, following him into the hills where he would carry the rifle and I, a simple Y shaped willow stick where once we encountered game dad would crouch with me supporting the rifle that I was far too small to hold myself, propped in the nook of the stick to take the shot.

It is here that I learnt the values of hunting with the greatest amount of humanity and dignity for our chosen quarry.

Since that time, I have hunted continuously to this day and now repeat this practice with my own daughter.

In 2003/4 I took special leave from my role as a senior quarantine officer with MAF, now MPI and still have my letter from the Agricultural Minister, Rt Hon. Jim Sutton granting me a year of special leave before returning to this role. That year, a friend and I spent an entire 13 months removed from civilisation in our mountains on both North and South Islands and the Chatham’s Islands group, hunting all of NZs game animal species. All 7 of our unique deer species, Himalayan Tahr and Austrian Chamois in our Southern Alps, wild Goats, Wallabies, Pigs, Wild Cattle in the Taranaki and the Saxon Merino sheep unique to the Chatham Islands. After many magazine articles and a feature on TV1 news we completed this year expedition.

 While NZ has been a country built on Outdoors pioneer greats and the likes of Julius Von Haast inspiring my life of botany and the outdoors, the expedition that we did has never been completed or attempted by anyone since.

When I graduated University in 1998 my first role was as a self-employed contractor in the Mount Cook National Park conducting ecological 4WD tours, a business that still exists to this day, now currently owned by Ngai Tahu and run by the Hermitage Hotel Group at the Mount Cook Village.

In 2000 I became a Senior Quarantine Officer at Auckland international Airport where I stayed until late 2005 with my year “Hunting sabbatical” described above in between.

In 2007 I returned to the South Island and took a role as Field Supervisor with the Otago Regional Council (ORC). This is where my knowledge will become of more value to you.

In this role with the ORC I was responsible for a large part of the environmental compliance work especially around compliance in the booming dairy sector.

However, my main role was responsibility for all of the pest control portfolio for the Coastal Otago region under ORC jurisdiction.

This role covered many environmental roles that can be viewed in detail on my LinkedIn account.

A key component obviously was in pest control and biosecurity portfolios and included both plant and animal pest monitoring and response.

I conducted all aspects of the ORC tendering process to the Animal Health Boards Possum and Ferret Tb vector Control programme from the project design, tendering, all consultation with public and private groups, Ministry of Health etc right through to the field implementation of these programmes in the field with the field teams conducting the physical work. In this time, I learnt a lot off many of the older experts who were in their day part of the old Pest Destruction Board that was later disbanded. Sadly, many of these icons are either long retired and some deceased.

I was solely responsible for the Rook (Crow) Control programme for Otago where upon my departure the population in Otago was reduced from many thousands of these pest birds to a population of less than 50 in the entire region. The key feature of this was the application of toxin into Rook nests in the tops of Pine & Eucalypt trees while being suspended on the end of a 70ft cable beneath a Helicopter, a job that few were prepared to do for obvious reasons.

I was also responsible for what was known as the RCD Bloods Programme where after the introduction of Rabbit CaliciVirus (RCD) the ORC has had a long programme of tracing its virulence and efficacy in the lead up to the recent re-release of the new strain that has sadly had poor results, and I could write another document on the science for you on why sadly this apparently failed result was always going to be the case.

When the people of Dunedin decided to create a pest and predator free environment on the Otago Peninsula, the ORC became heavily involved. In this I was the person who chaired all the public meetings as the ORC representative to sell this concept to a very concerned body of residents who were obviously not keen on toxins and traps being used in close proximity to residences and their pets. This required considerable consultative work with a concerned community groups and individuals to allay fears. Once handed over to contractors and the community itself this has become a successful programme of which much has been written nationally.

At this time with increasing rabbit numbers on the Taieri Plains I was also responsible as the ORC representative to chair public meetings for residents concerned about the use of 1080 right to their boundaries and to the boundary of the Dunedin Airport.

As you will have seen recently, the 1080 debate does inspire a lot of emotion. Sadly most people neglect a focus on facts and let themselves be ruled by emotion (hence my writing to you today).

As you can imagine these meetings would bring out anti 1080 campaigners who were so fired up they were more interested in almost violent action rather than level headed discussion. All of which were groups needing considerable appeasement.

This has played out right to this very day, as you will have seen with this behaviour of dumping dead native birds on the steps of parliament this week. 15/09/2018

Through all these roles I was a key feature in every aspect and was licenced in a myriad of invertebrate toxins poisons, many of which you may not have heard of unless your chemistry is rather good.

One of these was obviously Sodium Fluoroacetate more commonly known as 1080.

Many in these roles are licenced in just “use” of 1080. But with all of these toxins I have been licenced in what is known as “all life cycles” this covers everything from manufacture, purchase, storage, transport, use and disposal. Few in the contracting industry with these poisons are licenced this way.

While I work in another industry now and my licencing has lapsed there is not much I can’t tell you about any of these poisons or their mode of action in how they kill. My knowledge of how these toxins interact and breakdown in the environment is also extensive

This brings us to the current 1080 debate and I hope that I have adequately demonstrated that I can talk on this issue with quite a degree of Authority.

THE 1080 DEBATE AND ITS ISSUES; THE FACTS.

During my time with the ORC we conducted numerous Aerial Application jobs with 1080 mostly in control of possums and rodents in both private forestry but also on DoC estate. As above, I was responsible for it also being applied in farm environments working closely with land owners and farmers in Otago to develop programmes that they ultimately pay for in the control of rabbits, again using 1080 but also Pindone, MagTox, Cynogas and other poisons.

These 1080 programmes all require a 2 step process, involving a pre feed application then the toxic application.

In the case of rabbits, carrot is typically used with a prefeed to acclimatise the rabbit to what is actually an unusual food form for the wild rabbit.

In the case of Possums and rodents it requires a cereal pellet prefeed then the toxic application, again on a cereal pellet. In the case of possums many hunting groups have lobbied for the use of deer repellent that is sour to herbivores like deer but not to the target species, over the years the success of this has been improved and is considerable in appeasing hunting groups who are always the first to complain when large numbers of deer are killed as a result 1080 poisoning.

Standard practice is to apply at a time of the year when the possum is under feed stress (typically winter) and will more readily accept the bait, which as I say is typically a foreign food source.

The programme is set when there is a clear weather window of minimum 3 nights with less than 5mm of rain and then the toxic is applied at the first 3 night clear weather window interval after that to give the best result.

It is at this point I urge you to set aside much of what you may have heard about 1080 as sadly much of the information in the public arena is driven more by emotion than actual fact.

As a dog lover and owner, I share much of the public’s concern around 1080 use, and as an applicator in the past myself I would practice considerable “quarantine” of myself and clothing before returning home at the end of the day.

The reason for this is that dogs are known as the baseline for 1080 and nothing is more susceptible to death from 1080 than the domestic dog.

Susceptibility to all invertebrate toxins are measured on a scale of what is known as “lethal dose” or LD for short. Obviously pertaining to the amount required to administer a lethal dose.

 In a single 2lite bottle of 1080 concentrate there is enough to kill every dog in NZ.

The layperson assumes that toxic affect is based on animal size, so a small animal is more susceptible than a bigger one however this is very untrue and an animal’s susceptibility to 1080 is based on a variety of biological factors unique to each animal and its species.

Dogs being base line LD1 and Possums LD11 you need roughly 11 times the amount of 1080 required to kill a 2kg possum than you do to kill a 30kg dog, bird species sit in the middle with about 3-5 times (depending on species) the amount needed to kill a dog, but again much less than is needed to kill a possum.

By contrast the amount required to cause death in an 80-100kg human is roughly the same as is required to kill a 2kg possum.

Thus, in terms of 1080, dogs are LD1, Birds LD3-5 (depending on the species) amphibians like frogs sit around LD3-7. Rabbits about LD4 , With Humans (depending on child or adult and body size) sit around LD9-12, Possums are around LD11

The reason why possums need so much more comes down to their evolutionary biology. As you know the possum is native to Australia. Possum liberations into NZ came from all over the Australian continent and not all sub groups of the possum are the same. This is a feature of why we see differing success rates of 1080 when applied to possums in NZ.

The early Acclimatisation Society who introduced all our game species sourced possums from all over Australia in many hundreds of different liberations over several decades. It was never just one grand liberation as many people assume. There are excellent records kept and accessible today on all of these liberations and where animal stock was sourced from for them.

Sodium fluoroacetate is a naturally occurring compound found in many plants around the world

One is Camelia sinensis commonly known as Tea which we all drink. It is formed in small quantities and hence we can drink tea with no ill effects. The argument that as it occurs in tea then its harmless in the environment in toxic quantities is thus a rather ridiculous argument. As is the arguments that as it is Sodium(Salt) & Fluoroacetate (vinegar) so is no worse than salt and vinegar potato chips is equally preposterous, as I would love to see someone keen enough to consume crisps covered in 1080.

But believe it or not I did once witness at a public meeting a senior DoC manager try to make this most ludicrous suggestion. You can imagine the response from those assembled. But this does illustrate the erroneous facts that are presented sadly by some in public authority.

But I digress,

Another plant form that naturally produces Sodium fluoroacetate is the Australian Eucalyptus, and depending on the species it is made in varying amounts. In Australia, Eucalypt is the main food source for possums and this brings us back to the varied liberation of the Possum to NZ in that depending on its origin. Some sub species groups have experienced isolated evolutionary development and can be rather immune to 1080 in its natural form, depending on where they developed with different sub groups of the eucalypt species.

Above all this low level evolutionary exposure is why it takes a higher proportion of it to kill a possum than most other species that would have never encountered it in an evolutionary context. Ie, the dog.

The great issue I have had with much of what former parliamentary commissioner for the environment Mrs Jan Wright says is based on her continued assertion that 1080 is harmless in the environment and the waterways as it is instantly broken down. This could not be further from the truth.

1080 is actually hard to break down given the complex nature of the chemistry around salts (sodium) which form its base. What actually happens in a context of water is that it is merely diluted. As you will have heard the old saying which is true “Dilution is the Solution to pollution” this is correct and rings true for the case of substances like 1080 where large volumes of water will dilute the very low level of 1080 used on an individual bait pellet. This does therefore render it harmless. However, to say it is broken down chemically by water is scientifically untrue.

The pellets used for 1080 are a densely compressed cereal pellet that is required to endure the rigours of being bagged in bulk, transported, loaded into Helicopter buckets and then aerially dispersed where impact with hard surfaces of trees and rock when it is dropped from height but still hold together.

This is why you will see videos where whole pellets are in the water being fed on by native fresh water lobsters.

 Thus, to break down in the subsequent weather it requires in excess of 100mm of heavy rain to break these pellets up and typically at this point they are rendered into a soft and convenient grain size and cereal slurry that is the attractive and palatable to native birds.

Once damp, a cereal pellet not broken down begins to ferment as one would expect, this then makes it palatable and attractive to a nearly all insect life that are then subsequently eaten by birds and causing secondary poisoning.

In the case of deer and other herbivores unless the repellent I described above is used it is very susceptible to deer and predominantly to young yearlings who by their very biology are far more inquisitive to the foreign baits than are the likes of possums that have a very cautious and suspicious behavioural pattern. This is just a unique part of their biology.

In the environment a poisoned possum can drop into areas under vegetation or under fallen logs and a dried possum husk or carcass only requires a dog to find it and as little as a roll on the smelly carcass (as dogs do) then lick their fur after to obtain a lethal dose for a dog, again called secondary poisoning. This is typically how most of the dog fatalities that I have witnessed in NZ occur.

Again, these carcasses in the right conditions can remain toxic for many months even after warning signs are removed from public access roads.

Typically myself, being cautious I observe a minimum 6month stand down before venturing back into forestry where 1080 has been applied especially with my canine hunting mate.

Our reasons for using 1080 in NZ are obvious.

NZ is unique in its challenging and often inaccessible terrain. Possums are a fantastic adaptor and ecological opportunist species and have adapted to the NZ environment very well.

Indeed, some of the biggest possums I have ever seen were in alpine areas up to 1800m, well above snow line and even in this environment they perform exceptionally well.

Thus, for purposes of cost, safety and common sense aerial application of some form of toxin are always going to be needed and while 1080 is cheap we will continue to use it here.

This brings us to the next issues around it.

Much of the base form of Sodium fluoroacetate has and still is made in the USA. They have strict guidelines in its use.

Interestingly in 2001 after the anthrax scares in the USA post 9/11 the US Department of Homeland Security published a list of their biggest concerns of toxins sought by terrorists, obviously given the issues they had just faced, Anthrax was top of the list. Number 3 on that list was 1080 with the fear of it being applied to domestic water supplies. (No idea if that is still current however)

Again, this makes the assertion by Mrs Jan Wright that once in water it is harmless, possibly the most preposterous & factually incorrect thing she could possibly say on the issue.

By extension of this the key US guidelines of 1080 use, is for it not to be used aerially as we do in NZ as it needs to be kept out of waterways.

DoC statements are that it isn’t applied to waterways however in a natural bush valley with tributary creeks. The entire environment is a water way catchment.

We have a massive public focus on farming with nutrient flow and compliance saying that the whole valley is a catchment but when we are applying 1080 that philosophy appears to get thrown out and the valley is all of a sudden no longer a catchment area.

Also, in an aerial application a falling pellet can catch tree branches and be flicked up to 100 meters outside of the drop swathe area from the helicopter bucket and I have on many occasions seen this happen. These pellets can and will invariably end up in waterways even if the pilot has a GPS printout showing that he kept the required distance from the water way.

Again, as you will know many smaller waterways exist under the bush canopy and as I stated above this constitutes the entire catchment area. Indeed, it is these smaller bodies of water where many of our endangered fresh water species live, not in the bigger water bodies and rivers.

The way we use 1080 is the total opposite to the labelled use recommendations the USA produces when they make it & US manufactures are dismayed that we chuck it around in a veritable lollie scramble in the bush from helicopters

Having been at every level of 1080 use in NZ I actually find it remarkable that we have never had a 1080 fatality in NZ. But given that, there are some very good reasons for this.

Obviously, a big hard cereal pellet coloured a toxic looking green will deter most, but not the curiosity of children and luckily few would be so foolish to eat one thankfully. Also given the LD rate of 9-12 a human needs to ingest a significant amount, usually at least one pellet and they aren’t easy to consume.

In the pest contracting world there have sadly been deaths where there has been misuse of cyanide and I know of one sad case nearly 2 decades ago where a contractor’s wife, suffering depression took her own life using her husband’s cyanide tube, nearly also killing her neighbour who found her and tried to render mouth to mouth resuscitation.

Fortunately, this has never happened in the case of 1080 and the sole reason for this is the nature of death by which 1080 kills which is horrific in the extreme and the knowledge of this in the industry would I assume hopefully deter someone suffering suicidal ideologies.

When someone as in the above case has used cyanide to end their life they have done so given the characteristics of cyanide that it kills incredibly fast and is relatively painless.

Indeed, while using cyanide once I had a tiny piece flick into my eye from the paste tube and I can tell you now you have never moved so fast to get that amyl nitrate out of your belt pouch as you go into instant sweats and feel the instant effects of your blood stream lose its oxygen supply, fearing you only have moments to live. And that is with a tiny sub-lethal dose!

It acts by removing all oxygen from the blood stream in seconds and the victim essentially dies in less than 2 minutes from mass organ failure as a result of a type of instantaneous asphyxiation.

Other toxins we use in pest control kill via all manner of means from causing anything from fatigue, preventing blood clotting or shutting down the endocrine system etc.

1080 by contrast works by shutting down the central nervous system. However, it does this by mass disruption of the central nervous system in the most dramatic and catastrophic way.

The early onset is acute irritability then over progressing hours once a lethal dose is obtained it concludes with massive seizures similar to epileptic seizures only much, much worse. Depending on the species of animal and the size this can take many hours up to 12 hours for the victim to die.

During this process I wish to stress that there is absolutely no antidote on earth to reverse the effects once a lethal dose rate is used. Unlike many other poisons we use like Cyanide where amyl nitrate is used or for Brofidicoum (used in domestic mouse & rat poison that you can buy over the counter at the hardware store) where large amounts of Vitamin K can be administered reversing the effects, however 1080 has nothing to turn back the clock and death is inevitable.

Sadly, no antidote is available for 1080 and I have seen many dog owners faced with the soul-destroying inevitability to end the misery for the dog by shooting it as the death is too appalling to witness.

This mode of death is the same for all animals and humans who suffer a lethal dose and is why is steep bush terrain many of the carcasses of possums and deer end up down in creeks and waterways as they thrash themselves to death in steep undulating terrain.

If you could imagine the worst possible epileptic seizure, then multiply it by a factor of 1000 and draw it out of 6-12 hours then you might have some idea as to how horrific the death to 1080 actually is. In those seizures the victims thrashing is so violent that they shear off every internal organ, muscle and tendon from bones and in dogs I have seen them dislocate every limb, their jaws and eyes will protrude out of sockets onto the cheeks. The pain must be unimaginable and if you are to witness it you will carry the memory of this horror all your life.

Thus, I take considerable issue with the likes of Mrs Jan Wright saying that “NZ is very lucky to have 1080” if the most cruellest death imaginable is “lucky” then I’m sorry but Mrs Wright needs to take a good hard look at the issue. Especially when so much is made of animal cruelty around our agriculture, pork, and poultry industries.

We are one of the only countries in the world to use 1080 as we do and if we are going to keep our clean green image and maintain an animal rights moral high ground then the use of 1080 is an affront to all that.

The reason that 1080 has been banned in most other countries is due to is horrific cruelty alone and the risk to the population of a toxin without any form of antidote.

I was saddened that on today’s Duncan Garner AM show the head protestor talked a lot of balderdash and for all the protesting of science that they do he was absolutely 100% wrong in his description of the mode of death of 1080 and how it acts, and he appeared to be just an emotively driven man with very little if any knowledge, of any of the facts.

Interestingly it was the Germans during WW2 who first started mass producing 1080 in their campaign of genocide as a potential use, instead of the Cynogas that has been widely written about in history. As such, videos still float around from time to time of the laboratory trails of the day. While I haven’t seen these videos for several years myself, I am sure they can be found and am told they exist on the dark web. These are old black and white grainy videos of dogs being poisoned with 1080 in experiments with the obvious and appalling use later on people with it. These videos while edited to shorter versions of the lengthy death process testify to exactly what I have described to you above.

NZ has a precedence for banning invertebrate toxins based solely on the aspect of animal cruelty.

About 20 years ago NZ banned to use of Phosphorous in pest control. It was widely used in possum and wild pig control. It worked by the victim ingesting the bait, in the case of pigs it was common practice to lace a sheep or cow carcass with it.

Once ingested the phosphorous reacts with stomach acids and burns the victim from the inside out.

This obviously is a very cruel death and led to its eventual banning on animal welfare grounds.

As a youngster I was with a group of men still in the pest board days where they put out phosphorous into a valley that had a massive Possum population problem. That night we camped on the hill and all night we were tortured by the noise as the entire valley screamed and screamed the most blood curdling screams you will never, ever want to hear. The pain must have been horrific as many hundreds of possums died in unison, starting from a noise resembling a baby in agony then worsening to an ear shattering pitch & eventually fading to a sickening mewing before death.

The memory of that as a young man, is something I will take to my grave and fear I will be answerable to my maker for it on my day of judgement and reckoning.

It is an experience I wish upon no one and I was relieved when the use of phosphorous was outlawed.

However, to witness a death by 1080 while different is no less horrific and while it would tear me apart to see it again I would gladly sit down with Jan Wright to go through that process to then ask her at the end exactly how “Lucky” she feels to have witnessed it.

As a side issue we banned the use of strychnine in the 1970s as it was found to persist in the environment for many years and dogs could still be poisoned by eating bones that had been lying in the sun for many years as the strychnine was laid down in the calcium of the bone.

 I have read reports where it has an environmental a half-life of 50 about years.

So why have we used products like phosphorous and 1080 in the past?

Well simply for the above reasons of logistics but also because it is a cheap option and if no one witnesses the cruelty it’s all ok.

But that’s like the old saying “if a tree falls over in a forest and no one is there to hear it does it even make a noise”

We have also restricted the use over the years of 1080 used in jam. This is an old and highly successful method with far better kill rates than aerial 1080. BUT bees will come to the jam and it was found in concentration in honey and high LD rates, so it has been effectively banned by the Ministry of Health in recent years. I have not heard of it being used in recent times and in my experience with the ORC we avoided it in contract work given these issues. Upon leaving the ORC they still had about 100kg of 1080 apricot jam and I hope it has been long since disposed of.

But hang on, Jan Wright keeps quoting paperwork saying that 1080 is not as toxic as it seems and that we are lucky to have it!

Much of the published material on 1080 is around how well it works in terms of kill rate, and obviously a high kill rate is what the goal is, in cost effective conservation programmes.

In terms of rabbits this is easily measured and often it is quoted that 1080 achieves a 98% kill rate. This figure comes from years of use in places like central Otago. In this open environment it is easy to survey and indeed at very little cost one can do an aerial survey with a Robinson helicopter prior, to count the rabbits in a given area, then after repeat the process and count the dead carcasses. Thus, this figure of 98% gets quoted freely and across the board for pest control.

This doesn’t apply for possums however though.

As you will appreciate, in a dense native bush environment this process is much more complex as count surveys are not as accurate. Thus, the industry quotes an above 90% kill but this is an estimate only as no method has yet developed of doing accurate possum population counts prior and most certainly it is equally as complex and problematic after.

 It is said that it is better as given the cost benefit ratio of a 90+% kill rate it is more effective than ground operations that achieve 60-70% kills with toxins like cyanide. However, my experience is that I would say the figure is much less than 90% and often would be lucky to top 70%.

In possum control the effectiveness of any operation is measured by best practice monitoring. This is often very problematic and often highly inaccurate and gives little more than a rough guestimate.

This process is done by random computer-generated points for a GPS, the operator then goes to that GPS point on the map sets a leg hold trap, then sets one every 10m in a 10 trap sequence in a 100m line. They are monitored each day for 3 nights and cleared with possums caught counted and balanced against a pre-kill monitor survey.

However, none of this takes into account the complex ecology of possums.

After a massive kill operation, the population becomes disrupted not unlike that which happens to a human population in a war. The possums become very cautious to everything and trap monitoring can be inaccurate.

Also, the complex ecology of possums is at play, while the computer generates nice random GPS way points for the auditor, the distribution of possums in any environment is far from random. For instance, during winter possums will move off damp cold south facing hillsides they might tolerate in summer to congregate on warm north facing country where the environment it typically warmer. This is common in deer who like to lie in the sun and ruminate their food.

 For the possum, who does also this but who is nocturnal it is actually about food supply as the warm sunny faces still facilitates growth in winter rather than lounging in the sun as a deer will do.

Animals also occupy different altitudinal strata in the bush depending on the season.

Also contrary to popular belief possums don’t climb, live in or feed in every tree in the forest, nor do they occupy every rock den. As with all animals they have favourites, some trees are communal that they climb and interact and meet breeding mates in a communal fashion but don’t live in or feed from and vice versa.

Indeed, even a possum being chased by a dog will bypass trees it doesn’t normally climb (if it can) to get to a tree it knows it is always safe in.

The point here being that there is a vast array of ecological dynamics at play that aren’t taken into account when the population monitoring is done and in this context, it means that an aerial application drops bait into a vast many areas where possums will never come in contact with it.

Meaning while it is cost efficient on a per hectare basis it isn’t on a real-world results basis.

Again, I could entertain you with a veritable book on the ecology of possums that delves far deeper into this issue than the scope of which I have given a brief over view of here.

This brings us to the discussion of birds and the hotly debated aspect of bird loss. Again, I urge you to put aside much of what you may have heard while I present the facts.

When we talk about cost benefits of aerial 1080 over any ground-based operation it comes down to economics vs results.

Again 2 sides of an extreme argument are presented:

One by the protestors who say the native bird loss is unacceptable, while the conservation side say that it is low and thus acceptable and the bounce back of birds is much stronger.

Bearing in mind that if you were to shoot a native protected bird you are looking at a possible fine of upwards of $5000 per bird.

Now as I stated above, as the pellets break down birds will eat it and deaths are inevitable, and we have seen pictures of dead fantails and riflemen along with other native wildlife species and other native birds that the protestors use.

That part is irrefutable, however one could argue back and forth all day how many birds die, and since we had no accurate population data to begin with who actually knows or is even correct?

BUT again, a set of complex ecological issues are at play.

Our native birds are well known to sensitivities to changes in the environments. You may have even seen this on the news this week with an interesting story about the changing species dynamics that have taken place at the Karori Wildlife & Bird Sanctuary in Wellington, where even the DoC scientists were surprised by the results. As the scientists and DoC rangers in that story said it was more complex than just removing the predators as it ended up giving an unexpected result.

This demonstrated that even now we are still learning a lot about the species dynamics and ecology of even our most well-known native bird species.

What this study showed was the various ecological mechanisms that occur that displace different species even after predator removal.

So back to 1080. After a successful operation when we go into the bush anywhere there has been a big kill you hear of the protestors say that you can smell the stink of rot and death.

This is true where large kills were achieved.

It is then argued that the loss of birds is proof of that and you hear the protestors say that the bush is silent with no birdsong.

This is countered with conservationists saying “yes but come back in 3 months and the birdsong is deafening and the birds have bred and recovered better as a result” the flaw in this argument is that our native birds breed once a year, so it’s impossible for there to be a massive population recovery from successful breeding in just 12 weeks.

Both sides again caught in the extremisms of the emotional debate which while they are correct in part, they are actually incorrect in whole.

So what’s going on? What is the truth?

Let me explain:

When a large kill happens, all the ecology of the forest is disrupted. The death, while acute to the human visitor to the forest is visible, for the many species living in that environment it is in the short term much more profound.

As a result of this many birds will and do exit the environment in the following days and weeks, some are killed as we can see, but the majority simply exit the habitat in search of less destructive homes and habitat. Much in the way refugees exit a war-torn area.

Obviously, they later return and reoccupy these habitats and niches. When they do we hear mention of this “incredibly loud bird song” this is due to the returning birds, often the younger in the species first, looking for new mates.

The winter possum cull has ended, and spring is at foot so birds begin breeding again, but as the birds return in dribs and drabs to reoccupy the niches and habitat at large they are calling for mates and at far higher frequency and prevalence than they would if the habitat was balanced.

This fact cannot be argued, and it accounts for why the anti-1080 people say that after a poison drop the bush goes deathly quiet, but the pro-1080 people say that when it bounces back it does so with much more vigour due to the predator removal.

Neither side is operating off any scientifically reliable population data and neither side is acknowledging the deeply complex ecological factors at play.

Both are back to being hung up on the emotion of the topic. One being anti all toxins the other saying conservation at any cost.

Sadly, none of them are demonstrating any level of scientific balance.

I am conscious that this has been a lengthy review however it is important that you get the facts, and the non-emotive facts at that.

None of my presentation above is saying outright ban 1080 nor am I saying that we need to increase its prolific use. What I am doing is presenting the facts from a centre of the argument without the emotion which is sadly what neither side are doing at the moment.

What I am saying is that it’s time we put both sides of the extreme argument aside and look at the facts.

DoC are often dictated to by Forest and Bird Society who have their own motivations and the anti-1080 protestors are clearly driven by the motives of their own emotions. Neither are discussing much in the way of fact.

As politicians you need the correct facts to act upon and as we are seeing in current politics, policy driven solely by emotion is a fast road to disaster and failure.

Many other nations can perform quality conservation without 1080 and many cases can be sighted and argued that they get even better results, often more so than we do in NZ.

I know the next question on everyone’s lips is “Well what do we do if we ban 1080?”.

Well it’s about innovation; Kiwis are incredible innovators and while ground control is expensive in the past we have seen companies like “GoodNature.co.nz” with their new reset gas traps which were developed alongside DoC.

Many other great Kiwi innovators will come into the frame here also.

The future of NZs conservation is in our ability to think outside the square and innovate and I know we can do that, but it means casting off old, lazy tired thinking and many people are sadly prone to continue with this.

But while 1080 is cheap and easy it becomes the lazy and convenient go to option for conservation outcomes and without a clear goal it basically becomes the “plastic shopping bag conundrum” of the our conservation estate.

Meaning a quick and pointless emotive reaction to a problem without a long term plan or goal.

To hear journalists like Duncan Garner say today if we ban 1080 we might as well walk away from the 2050 pest free initiative” is not only the height of non-critical thinking & stupidity but it is also very short sighted and irresponsible to our future generations.

 THE 2050 PREDATOR FREE INITIATIVE.

As I have stated above there are a lot of ecological complexities to achieving this goal but it also one that requires a multi-faceted approach to all our conservation not just predators as pests. It requires an approach to habitat change as well from the eradication of pest plants to programmes like the wilding pine project that the National government put $16 million into but which is now in jeopardy under the new govt, through to other long-term projects like the McKenzie Basins Project River Recovery and a myriad of other habitat Conservation projects in between.

One major issue looming on the proverbial horizon is the rapid growth in our wild deer populations.

We faced this in the 1960s and 70s and a kind of Cowboy industry boomed at the time that fixed it. But in todays world we no longer have Sir Tim Wallances and Jeff Bennetts ready to pounce off every helicopter skid to catch live deer. They aren’t around and in their place, we now have things like Food Safety regulations, Civil Aviation regulations and of course Occupation Health and Safety regulations. The days of cowboy solutions, while they were a hell of a lot of fun, are now long gone.

The next government will need to address the problem of our deer populations. I can take you to any place in the South Island and many on the East Cape of the North Island where deer populations have exploded in the last decade.

Places where 15 years ago you might have seen a couple of deer in an entire weekend now I can show you herds of 200 in every gully.

Wild Deer populations unmolested by hunting will double every 2 years. The recreational hunters while more numerous than ever before can’t keep up and the commercial meat recovery industry given the regulations it works to can’t either and this week’s furore over 1080 shows that blanket poisoning has a limited life as the public has now a limited stomach for

This problem isn’t restricted to deer either. MPI are pushing massive resources into the control of Wallabies in the Central South Island where their effective range has quadrupled in the last 20 years posing a massive biosecurity and pest issue into North Otago now that they have crossed the mighty Waitaki River. The only workable solution we currently have to this is like rabbits, the farmer needs to destock the property while an aerial 1080 drop is applied.

As you can see the issues pertaining to our introduced species of all kinds, pests, game animals and otherwise are many and differ widely in how they will affect NZ conservation policy in the future.

All of these issues have vast complexities outside of the scope of this report and form discussion topics of length all of their own.

These are all issues that I have witnessed developing over many years and most certainly long before the 2050 pest free initiative was even created in concept.

I have worked through many cost benefit analyses of various plans and policy that any forward-thinking government and or its minister/s would be proud to take on board and develop a legacy to.

But NZ needs to urgently set aside the solely emotional extremisms of the protest movements & the extremisms & mistruths of pseudo-science given in the Conservation sector if for other gain other than knowing that we are creating an honest and successful legacy for our children and the future of NZ’s Clean Green Image and if we choose to continue hold the moral high ground and be true champions of animal welfare.

                                                         Geoffrey Booth