This statement is made within correspondence in 1994 by an Eltham resident (NZ) to a US manufacturer of 1080 (details supplied in the document at the end of the article). The person was trying to ascertain the level of risk to environment and health regarding an imminent drop of 1080 poison into a Taranaki National Park.
It is interesting to note that the replies to all the risks the person raises in their questions are risks that are now deemed quite safe & have become normalized (to the authorities at least that is – many people are now very concerned, witness the recent hikoi & continual NZ wide protests going on).
Here are the questions and answers enlarged for reading:
Nowadays we are told that 1080 targets pests and we are given the impression that little if any other form of wildlife is affected. In fact nothing could be further from the truth. A person told me recently in the Manawatu that she was told no birds would die in the bush nearby when it was 1080ed however to her surprise she found a dead bird after the area was treated. Of course we now know that this is a common occurrence by the testimony of many people who find multiple dead birds after drops, photograph them & post them online. And of course we have the various documentations that we’ve published here of multiple finds, with latterly the estimate by a Landcare scientist of 10,000 birds in a South Island drop. Just search ‘birds, 1080’ in our search box to find more.
We are regularly told that 1080 breaks down to harmlessness in water. A scientist told me the other day it is so diluted it isn’t a problem, repeating the cup of tea mantra we hear so regularly. We also learned recently it was added to water to poison ships rats and we heard from the former Greens co-leader that there are question marks over the official testing on 1080 concentrations in water.
This is very enlightening. No wonder the data sheets tell us not to allow it into waterways. However NZ it seems makes up their own rules on that one. No research to prove their point, they just tweaked the rules. Here is a link to the information regarding the development of 1080 by Germany for use as a chemical weapon in water supplies.
Not approved in the US! “Very very restricted & controlled areas” only. And here it is chucked around like a veritable lolly scramble. The baits aren’t picked up off public walkways & neither are the poisoned animals collected & disposed off, frequently left to rot in the water where eels and other meat eaters can feed off them (Watch Poisoning Paradise on that one).
Remember the Hunua Ranges drop recently? A Court injunction to stop that one failed & during the proceedings DoC lawyers asked (and were granted) that the opposing lawyers not be allowed to question the DoC scientist. Now doesn’t that say something? Let’s not forget Bill Benfield’s revelation either that a drop in the Hunuas in the ’90s left the water filters packed with 1080 pellets. Good one DoC. And none of the public ever got to hear about it.
Previously I’ve noted the frequent discovery of pellets on tracks, drops going on around tourists, pellets dumped near people fishing, on it goes. The veritable lolly scramble again.
Water & wildlife contamination. Something we are repeatedly told does not happen. The manufacturer’s data sheet warns users not to drop into waterways. NZ has tweaked the rules of course so they can.
You may need to make your own decisions on all of that & make your own plans for non-contamination if necessary. It does not look like anybody else is going to.
Here are the whole pages of the documents with addresses & contact details:
I was only talking to Ben Rubin the other day about the international successful brand awareness of Initial. We see that logo in every public loo in the world. I’m not sure when Rentokil and Initial become one and the same (?) But perhaps the covid era theatre of extreme-hygiene was made specially for/by this chemical marriage.
Pests and viruses – same thing. Both presented by the media as ugly, hated and needing to be endlessly ‘eradicated’.
Surely everyone needs Rentokil Initial’s innovative ‘virus-killing-automatic-air-sanitiser’ for example. Wow! Profits have soared. So much so, expansion to New Zealand has meant Rentokil’s acquisition of that special ‘boys-club’ that forms the 1080 aerial-poisoning NZ Government sub/contractors. But do Kiwis know about Rentokil’s dark secret in its home country of England, involving a very similar toxin from over sixty years ago?
Screenshot from Rentokil Initial’s recent Annual Report detailing their ‘new investment’ into New Zealand’s Military Industrial Conservation Complex
I’ve written before about what we can now confidently term “The Military Industrial Conservation Complex”. This War on Nature is a complex story of NZ Gov psyops and corruption, which for over 70 years has proven to be too much for many activists to bear. Academics like me who have dared questioned this type of ‘Turtles all the Way Down’ propaganda become victims of the Corporate Playbook, as I have published about on
here. Like the hideous Agent Orange, toxic 1080 (sodium monofluoroacetate) keeps raining down on us, apparently to kill the ‘pests’, in a physical and psychological attack. In a blatant contradiction to the Manufacturers Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) the colourful, glossy propaganda still (unbelievably) insists this lethal, indiscriminate poison, with no antidote, is ‘natural’, ‘biodegrades’ and of course, is totally ‘safe and effective’.
Example from the [now deregistered] Pest Control Education Trust, which distributes the propaganda that claims to be valid ‘public consultation documents’ to residents and landowners of land & water about to be aerially poisoned with 1080
In case anyone is still doubtful about the lies evident in the above example of NZ Dept of Conservation propaganda, let’s look briefly at how synthetic 1080 is manufactured, before it’s added to the green-coloured, sugar-laden, cereal food-baits and then distributed in tonnes by helicopters over our land and water. Ethyl fluoroacetate, sodium hydroxide and ethanol are mixed together. These chemicals are so lethal, with sub-lethal consequences completely untested and unknown and the process so specialized, that up until now, there appears only one company in the world using it – Tull Chemical Co, Oxford, Alabama (conveniently, it recently burned down, but more on that rabbit hole another day). By examining the Manufacturer’s Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) of ethyl fluoroacetate alone, this provides an insight into the known unknowns of the impact of being in contact with this chemical:
“Material is extremely destructive to tissue of the mucous membranes and upper respiratory tract, eyes, and skin., Cough, Shortness of breath, Headache, Nausea, To the best of our knowledge, the chemical, physical, and toxicological properties have not been thoroughly investigated.”
Here’s an extract from the toxicity section of the MSDS for the 1080 poisoned-food cereal baits, confirming the unknown risks:
There is no antidote. This poison should never be released from the sky and spread indiscriminately. The CDC webpage on 1080 poisoning symptoms seems to have been removed recently, but here is the WayBack Machine’s capture from a few months ago which clearly states the dangers from the ‘unlikely’ inhalation. Apart from it’s not ‘unlikely’ if, against the manufacturer’s instructions, it’s dropped from the sky! As Aly Cook sang a few years back (in another unsuccessful attempt to halt an operation): “Stop the drop of the poison rain; how can mankind be so insane?”:
Toxic historical context
For everyday Kiwi’s stories of the harms caused by aerial 1080 and brodifacoum operations over the 70+ years of Government-sponsored poisoning, please see the Peoples Inquiry 2020 that recorded hundreds of public submissions from personal lived experiences. Details are found in my post here:
Impacts of Toxic Chemicals & Poisons Across New Zealand are Overwhelming and Disturbing
The volunteer committee of the citizen-led New Zealand People’s Inquiry (of which I’m a member) have this week publicly released the collection of written submissions into the impacts and effects of toxic chemicals and poisons on the people, wildlife and environment of Aotearoa, New Zealand.
Read full story
Government contractors were understandably labelled ‘cowboys’ by a Chief Medical Officer of Health in a past meeting I attended. That’s because evidence from EPA annual reports and other outcomes shows these companies often have no regard for valid risk assessments, health and safety policies or public consultation processes. For a shocking example of the latter, you can see this evidence from Dr Wendy Pond during the Peoples Inquiry 2020 where a ‘sign off’ approving an aerial poisoning operation was forged, because the tribal elder named, had already passed away. Where is the accountability?
But where was the accountability for Rentokil after the Smarden Affair? Back in 1963, a poison closely related to 1080, fluoroacetamide, was deliberately dumped into a ditch serving a farming community in Kent, UK. This BBC archive summarises the tragic story (2.5 mins). Decades pass. Regardless, the propaganda of BigChem continues. That UK poisoning led to pyres that burned the contaminated herds. Sound familiar?
These memories resurfaced when in 1985 farmers at Smarden discovered the first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in Kent and a number of further cases followed. Twelve years later, a perceived cluster of cases of new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) in the Smarden area led to speculation that this human form of BSE was caused by excessive exposure to pesticides. Reports in the press suggested that the residents of Smarden suspected the incident had been some sort of government-controlled experiment and subsequent cover-up which had produced BSE.
Wrote John Clark, Senior Lecturer in History, University of St Andrews back in 2017. [Must be a conspiracy theorist, eh?].
In this latest Annual Report, Rentokil Initial boast about the ‘respectful engagement with communities’ (communities that they are about to poison?) by ‘building strong local knowledge’ and ‘lasting relationships’. (maybe with NDAs?) The report goes on to list the four NZ contractors swallowed-up by BigChem Rentokil:
Extract from Rentokil Initial’s Annual Report
It is EcoFX listed above which repeatedly undertook the aerial poisoning of Pirongia mountain. The drinking-water catchment is located there, serving the local communities, including the schools and the in-bed-with-Government milk-processing plant, Fonterra. Evidence shows that the aerial poisoning with 1080 over Mt Pirongia (like similar operations) includes distributing the poison over the water at the same rate as the land (this saves the ‘cowboys’ money in helicopter fuel and labour hours and therefore maximises profits). Here’s an example of that crime from ten years ago (10 mins):
The latest 1080 poison operation has been announced for nearby Mt Moehau for July this year. The last operation was only three years ago (usually it is every 4-7 years). The frequency and intensity and toxicity of these 1080 aerial poisonings are increasing nationwide. On the residents’ communication for Mt Moehau, no mention of Rentokil Initial, only of EcoFX in the pseudo-consultation invitation:
On EcoFX website, they claim to be ‘part of the Rentokil Initial Group’, as if that is something to be proud of:
It’s interesting to note that EcoFX isn’t a registered NZ Company. The ceased Director is listed as Director/Shareholder of One Degree Ltd and One Foot Investments (unknown entities). Rentokil Initial NZ (strangely, 100% shareholders are Rentokil Spain, not UK) are using the old contractors as ‘trading names’. This could be confusing for anyone trying to engage with the Government or contractor about the consultation process or the inevitable lethal consequences that come with indiscriminate aerial poisoning. And believe me, they are inevitable.
“Safe and effective?” Yeah, nah.
We’ve learnt from the last five years that nothing is quite what it seems. That media mantra ‘Clean, Green, 100% Pure New Zealand’ is another myth. It’s time people woke up to the BigChem capture of our so-called Environmental Protection Authority alongside our healthcare systems. These entities only seek to perpetuate our sickness.
Thanks for reading Informed Heart! This post is public so feel free to share it.
Note: envirowatchnz has a trove of info on 1080 if you check out the main menu & subtabs. Also search 1080 in the categories drop down box. The 1080 industry is huge & rife with corruption and lies. Hopefully folk will believe that now after the ‘safe and effective’ scam fed us by Big Pharma & Co for the past 5 years.
Back in 1994 Dr Meriel Watts wrote in her book The Poisoning of New Zealand*, of constant phone calls to the Soil & Health Assn by folk asking … “Is 1080 safe & do I have to let them drop it on my property?” The Association’s view at the time she said was ‘no’ and ‘no’. Soil & Health’s submission to the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s Possum Management review stated that “the current practice of distributing by air large amounts of 1080-laced carrot and pollard baits over large areas has lead to unacceptable risks to the environment, human health, dogs, farm stock, birds and other members of the ecosystem.” (p 186, 187).
That submission cited various incidents experienced by farmers.
“In one case a South Island farm lost 570 ewes when 1080 was dropped in his pastures as a result of the helicopter swinging too wide when dropping over bush patches. His sheep were still dying up to six months later; there were also a large number of abortions.” (Dr M Watts, p 187)
“In another case … a central North Island farmer came home to find 1080 spread all over her farm and around her house. There was a nice sign stating this fact, but no prior notification and no prior permission given. Fortunately her dogs were locked up.” (Dr M Watts, p 187)
We seldom of course hear of these incidents as they are not normally featured by mainstream media. It has been highlighted via the GrafBoys’ information that these stats are actually hidden in the paper work. Farmers, when claiming compensation, are required to list that compensation as for purposes other than poisoned stock losses.
Please read the comments below as a farmer has shared about the loss of his dogs to likely 1080 poisoning.
See tv-wild.co.nz also for further info from the GrafBoys. Watch the video on topic at their Youtube channel here.
Photo: Pixabay.com (note, not the actual farm or farmer in the article).
*The Poisoning of New Zealand by Dr Meriel Watts, Ak Institute of Technology Press, 1994
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