1080 Poisoning in NZ

[ANTSMAN68]

check out these vids on you tube.I do a little hunting, and was never aware of half of what goes on that we dont know about in our backyard.

We are no nukes.

We were anti Iraq invasion.

In hindsight everyone is anti agent orange.

but we allow our government to poison our countryside?

check these out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yJSvAe8SXw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlC3yLShuRI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCMybJoJk90
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m81afDNSS-4





theres a website setup for signing the anti 1080 petition...

http://www.thegrafboys.org/


while i personally agree that possums are pests, and numbers should be controlled, i dont believe blanket poisoning is wise.more and more people are getting out into the back country, so it strikes me as crazy to be dropping poison .

Ants

[FireFox]

The important thing to remember is that the vast majority of the bye-kill from 1080 results in species that are introduced to NZ (anyone quoting the usage figures deserves a kick in the arse), so it comes down to 'Deer or Native speices', to which no emperical data can be obtained.
A simple Google Scholar search will give a good range of info, where the most common effects of 1080 drops is prey shifting, effects on species unlikely to be in the drop area, or non-target species through a lack of control (e.g. dogs in the exclusion area).
Two particularly useful documents include:
http://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/bitstream/10063/42/2/report.pdf Written by an ex-Green advisor, the Same person at the very start of the 4th link, and a better represenatation of his point of view than sound bit cuttings
http://www.ermanz.govt.nz/news-events/1080/ERMA%201080%20Reassessment%20FINAL.pdf

A key advantage of 1080 is its very low residual nature in the environment (~6 months under most NZ conditions), low toxicity vs. the alternatives and ease/cost of distribution.

A real fun way to hassle hippies is to say 'I argee 1080 is bad, I know wobaly possum disease shows great potential to kill them humanely' (hippy) 'ohh, lets use that' (me): 'Needs a GE vector though.

Steven

[MikeE]

Dang hippies. You're nto one of those "I don't want DDT, because it might cause a problem but I'm happy for 1 million black dudes to die from malaria that could be prevented by using DDT" are you?

[FireFox]

Further, now I have had a chance to sample the videos:
LOOK AT THE STANDARD WOO CRAP.

that is all.

[ANTSMAN68]

now i dont consider myself to be a stupid person, much, but geesh sometimes, wait most times you are one hard to understand person Steven.

deer or native species? , if we were to totally preserve "native" nz species we would have to remove ourselves, all of us!

i can see forest and birds position about the want to remove wildlife predators, but at the expense of dropping poison form the air? where we spend our leisure time? just strikes me as overkill, and while you or any other qualified person can say its biodegradeable or it breaks down in this period of time, and its the best thing we have at the moment, i still come back to the other facts that, it is still a poison, and we are still dropping it in our countryside, also how many other civilised countries drop 1080? im sureyou being the thorough person you are Steven will be able to come up with some place that uses it, but from what i have heard, civilised countries stopped using it decades ago, like 245T. other thing that worries me is that every time big companies/govts that have"conducted extensive" testing end up stopping the use of their poisons decades later due to people(babies) growing extra limbs/born without limbs/ etc etc.

i dont see the solution to the problem of possums and TB as being dropping poisons that are indisciminate.

Ants

and please Steven if your gonna reply make it so i dont have to google your wording, and crack out my super code breaking compooter

[Shane396]

Yeah i have to agree with ants here, 1080 is useless. I hunt with my father when i can and the deer are really great creatures (better to eat tho :P) and a poison that causes a creature to rip its on guts out is just cruel.

Deer are not an introduced species that need population control, my and the many thousands of nz hunters rifles do that. When me and my dad go to shoot deer we take a .22 as well to shoot the numerous possums we see on the way out to do our thing to help.

[FireFox]

A very simple fact is that deer have HUGE, negative, impact on the New Zealand bush (vs. controlled). In the Tararuas (and elsewhere) there have been sustained projects using deer explosures (i.e. areas keeping only deer out) that have shown that deer selectively browse seedlings, effecting the revegation of the bush.
This is why, going back to the 1930s, there has been a sustained effort to reduce their numbers. Back in the culling days it was not uncommon for daily kills of deer of 20 or more, and there is continued evidence that recreational hunting does not bring deer numbers low enough to allow sustained revegetation of the bush.

One of the key reasons NZ still uses 1080 is the very species it targets: Mammals. This was my comment is my first post: anyone quoting the usage figures deserves a kick in the arse. Simply put NZ has two types of land mammal: Bats and introduced. Bats are basically dead on the mainland, so the only mammals likely to be killed are introduced ones.
This is not the case in other countries, as the native species that need protecting often include mammals, so they will use other chemicals to avoid catching their natives in the kill drops. This is not the case as NZ has very few native land mammals.

Because of these points I was observing that the case: 'Deer are killed by 1080, so 1080 is bad' fundamentally falls to the trade-off between Benefits from 1080 (bovine Tb control and Native species preservation) and deer for human recreational use, respecting the fact that from a conservation perspective that 1080 bye-kill of deer is a benefit for forest preservation.
My statement from this is that it falls to a value judgement, and there is no absoulte that can be considered.

My statement to use Google Scholar was to indicate how easy it is for the 'man on the street' to do an independent survey of properly conducted research to counter the many false claims spread on issues.

As for my second post about 'typical woo crap' I was simply observing that the videos contain (and you yourself use) the standard tricks of those dealing in issues like this:
1) Emotive language and images (massive, suffering, poision, pain, evil, fathers and sons deprived of recreational oppertunity),
2) Normal guy vs. BIG evil, and the subsequent ignoring of negative impacts of chemicals by BIG evil, in this case government (odd, I remember bye-kill being covered by both DoC and MAF in stage one lectures, back in 2000)
3) Talkng heads (ohh, look at Sean's books he knows so much), and the related arguement for authority,
4) NO evidence beyond correlation of deer kills shown (hell 1080 aint hard to test for in animal systems),
5) Gross generalisations (EVER TIME there Ants? Better stop using treated timber mate), also related to this is spreading toxins about. Better stop the Argicultural and Foresry industries then, Toxin use there is MASSIVELY greater than 1080 (and many of the same concerns relating to chronic exposure exist for argichemicals too)
6) False Dichotomies (A or B, but ignoring C through Z, mainly 1080 or nothing, ignoring effects (costs) of other control agents).
7) Ingoring really simple methods to answer the 'concerns' (google scholar for one)
8) And the real biggy: Unstated Major Premise (i.e. dear need protecting).

While nicely ignoring independent considerations of the evidence, heck F&B, DoC, and ERMA all hold the view 'not great, but the best we have'

While I argee some of the concerns are valid (humane killing) I would be willing to bet that the same farmers in the video are all for the Spread of rabbit calicivirus and nicely ignore the fact that this causes the blood of the rabbits to literally solidify to kill them, alternately Brodifacoum used in household rat bait where the animal bleeds to death internally. I know this boarders on an Ad hom attack, but I am using it to illistrate the use of selective evidence and interpérations of 'bad' and 'good' and the relative 'worth' of an individual animal life.

Steven
couple of edits for sense

[ANTSMAN68]

you dont get out a lot do you steve? :)

anyway, deer/possums/plants/fauna/discarded panties/ lolly wrappers being pests, i STILL dont think throwing 1080 around the country is good, regardless of the complexity of your posts, and regardless of what the quoted numbers say.are you aware of the problems wild cats and stoats/ferrets cause to birdlife, especially Kiwi?lets 1080 all our backyards to kill them pesky cats off which is where the wild ones come from.kids and dogs eat the 1080, bah who cares ,collateral damage.

ants

oh and btw "Back in the culling days it was not uncommon for daily kills of deer of 20 or more, and there is continued evidence that recreational hunting does not bring deer numbers low enough to allow sustained revegetation of the bush"

continued evidence that recreational hunting does not bring deer numbers low enough?????????? rubbish. are you aware that commercial venison recovery from the 60s to the 80s nearly wiped out the deer population in NZ?


1, deer released turn of century, nzpopulation= bugger all
2, 2 x world wars occupies nz population for couple decades=population of nz still bugger all
3, population of nz now=close to 5 million= 4million times the bugger all people from turn of century=plenty of pple to control deer numbers as well as chopper shooters.

thats the simplistic way i see it, having read a bit about deer and hunting,and gotten out in the hills a liddle.

end of the day would you throw 1080 carrots around the grass at back of your house under the washing line?

[FireFox]

you dont get out a lot do you steve? :)

DO TOO, The letterbox is at the end of the drive.


anyway, deer/possums/plants/fauna/discarded panties/ lolly wrappers being pests, i STILL dont think throwing 1080 around the country is good, regardless of the complexity of your posts, and regardless of what the quoted numbers say.

I personally agree with the bold, but add the extra bit: 'but it is better than what we have to replace it in possum control'

In rants like this I mainly try to seperate 'opinion' from 'fact' and 'bad arguements' from 'good ones'. The videos you posted fall into 'opinion' and 'bad arguements', even though the sentiment is perfectly valid, if a little outdated (the review they talk about at the start was completed in late August 2007).

Trust me though, you will know if you ever hit on one of my pet topics.

S

[FireFox]

oh and btw "Back in the culling days it was not uncommon for daily kills of deer of 20 or more, and there is continued evidence that recreational hunting does not bring deer numbers low enough to allow sustained revegetation of the bush"

continued evidence that recreational hunting does not bring deer numbers low enough?????????? rubbish. are you aware that commercial venison recovery from the 60s to the 80s nearly wiped out the deer population in NZ?


1, deer released turn of century, nzpopulation= bugger all
2, 2 x world wars occupies nz population for couple decades=population of nz still bugger all
3, population of nz now=close to 5 million= 4million times the bugger all people from turn of century=plenty of pple to control deer numbers as well as chopper shooters.

thats the simplistic way i see it, having read a bit about deer and hunting,and gotten out in the hills a liddle.

end of the day would you throw 1080 carrots around the grass at back of your house under the washing line?

While hunting significantly reduces the number of deer (about 30% on a national basis, though >80% in some cases) even this number of deer has a negative effect on vegetation structures e.g.

There is currently great interest in restoring ecosystems affected by invasive organisms. In New Zealand, deer were introduced during the nineteenth century, causing dramatic changes to the understory composition and structure of some forests. Deer prefer to browse on short tree species, mostly associated with early successional stands and moist-fertile sites, but many tall tree species are browsed only when other food sources are scarce. The government has invested heavily in control programs aimed at reducing deer numbers and thereby restoring forests to something approaching their preinvasion composition and structure, but have met with only limited success. Based on a literature review, we give several examples of situations in which deer impacts may not be reversible, including the following: ( 1 ) palatable species remaining highly browsed even at low deer densities as a result of diet switching; ( 2 ) occupation of vacated niches by plant species not eaten by deer; ( 3 ) local extinction of seed sources; ( 4 ) fundamental alterations to successional pathways; ( 5 ) shifts in ecosystem processes; ( 6 ) other exotic animals becoming naturalized and weakening the effectiveness of single-species control; and ( 7 ) exotic plants weakening the effectiveness of single-species control. We consider the contributions that scientific research can make to effective forest restoration, including empirically based forest-dynamics models that place regeneration in the context of other processes, such as disturbance, soil fertility, and multiple invasive organisms.
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bsc/cbi/2003/00000017/00000002/art00014

And I would not use 1080 at home, I use Brodifacoum (and Timms style traps) as it is easier to apply on a small scale, I can keep an eye on the consumption rate of it (monitor the need for more application) and there is a known antidote if a non-target species (e.g. my dog) gets exposed (it is happened). After looking at the costs/risks and benefits I decided on this route for my local pest aminal controls. I do regularly go into areas very early after 1080 drops though, with little concerns for my safety (I do leave the dog at home though).

Steven

[Burnt Toast]

Awesome read.

Sorry steven but I have to side with Ants on this subject.
I really don't like the old "well what else are we going to do" solution, or the "it's better than something worse, chemical wise".

This (to me) is New Zealand bureaucracy at it's finest.

Whats wrong with starting a trade in the Problem, a demand.
Deer = Meat, Possiums = Pelts.
Support it as an industry, regulate to sustaine.

You said so yourself, you don't agree with dropping poisen, amen brother.

Know one "really" knows what the long term effects of putting this stuff into the food chain will do.
You don't think the odd cow or sheep (not forgetting the dear that the weekend shooter has just shot) hasen't eaten this stuff just before they were shipped off to the works. Not enough to kill them, but enough so that you and me are exposed to it.

If other countries are banning or just stopping the use of the poisen, Why?, Why?, Why?, Why?, Why?.
After 5 Why's you should have the real answer, or root course of what is going on.
You got it, Money.

[ANTSMAN68]

thanks for your input guys.

anyone else have input on this?

ants

[FireFox]

Whats wrong with starting a trade in the Problem, a demand.
Deer = Meat, Possiums = Pelts.
Support it as an industry, regulate to sustaine.


Because that worked so well with controlling possum in the early 19XXs.

[Burnt Toast]

I see, so the wrong people made some money?.

[ANTSMAN68]

actually possum control has been getting more and more efficient, i heard on radio other day there was an exporter exporting millions of dollars worth of possum meat to japan for pet food untill the importers in Japan discovered the meat could possibly be tainted with 1080=end of exporting to Japan.

not to mention the massive market now (and increasing) for possum merrino mix clothing, hats coats scarves etc,

while there is a long way to go in improving the non toxic control of non native species, i STILL think dropping poison from planes and choppers is stupid, regardless of reports and scientific studies , we have built our country on great ethics and usually take a stand where it counts, usually on the side of being clean and green.yes i know to be totally clean and green we shouldnt use cars, we should ban smokign, we should ban synthetics, and we should ban dairy farming, truth is ANTHING in excess is bad for you and the environment, its getting the balance right that counts, or at least trying. when we stop trying and throw poison around the country justifying it with reports of low non target species mortality rates, we lose sight of the basic facts that it is still poison.

i dont have a problem with people having different opinions about things as that is what makes people people.what i do have aproblem with is a govt or rather succession of govts and govt departments being 2 faced, selling the clean green image, but yeah heres another chopper load of aerial green stuff...

ants