So … “the Department of Conservation (DOC) is taking the extraordinary step of getting an independent review of a 1080 operation in which cows were subsequently killed…” (tvnz)
“Extraordinary” alright. In the midst of the growing current NZ-wide distrust of the poison that’s constantly been touted as next to harmless, DoC appears to be in damage control mode as their 1080 edifice cracks & crumbles, making much here of the scenario that the cows allegedly broke through a fence to the 1080-treated adjacent area. Listen to the video however as this family are interviewed. A lot of questions remain unanswered. Scrambling to control the public perception of 1080 now with independent reviews to prove their credibility, yet killing 89 of NZ’s iconic treasured native Kiwi garnered not ONE test to see if any of them died of 1080 poisoning. Small wonder they are losing credibility. Then was their opportunity to prove to us all that the Kiwi did not die of 1080 poisoning but back then the public believed all the glossy brochures that told us only pests died from 1080.
One of the owners notes that they have not found one dead possum (one of those pests we’re told are ‘targeted’, a miracle given 1080 kills ALL oxygen breathing animals and organisms, including insects … it was developed initially as an insecticide) … and to state the obvious, this land could clearly have been covered by bait stations. Why was an aerial drop used? We are frequently told aerial drops are required for inaccessible areas. It is routinely applied however ‘near homes, farm boundaries, public highways and into rivers from which drinking water is drawn’. Many examples of this have been highlighted more recently as the issue has come under closer scrutiny.
The point here also is, this is not an isolated & rare incident. DoC’s investigation of such incidents however is. They should really order reviews on all of the other stock deaths that slipped under the radar, many on account of being hidden in the paperwork. Yes farmers are asked to declare their stock deaths (farmers who want compensation for those losses) as something other than stock deaths. Hear farmers interviewed on that at this link.
A working document summarizing significant poisoning events connected to aerial poisoning for pest control in NZ estimates the total numbers of deaths in farmed deer/cattle as being 3,408, estimated in 1976 to be approximately 158 per year. This would total approx. 10,000 since 1954. Actual recorded data is likely to be a small percentage of the whole total.
Dr Meriel Watts records the incident in the ’90s where 570 sheep were poisoned by 1080, with sheep still dying six months later.
Total numbers of dogs: could be as high as 6816 per year which equals 429,408 over 63 years of aerial poisoning operations.
Total numbers of human poisoning incidents: approx. 31 individuals (more pending)
Read the full information at this link.
Below is a link to tvnz’s article on the independent review.
