Tag Archives: neighbourly

1080, News, Poison

There has been a recent spate of animal & bird poisonings on Auckland’s North Shore

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From FRIENDS OF SHERWOOD, Auckland
CITIZENS INITIATED REFERENDUM TO BAN ALL CRUEL POISONS.
There has been a recent spate of poisonings on Auckland’s North Shore with distressed residents finding dead and dying birds in Rothesay Bay and Browns Bay for the past couple of weeks.
Fiona Macdougall from Rothesay Bay posted on the local Neighbourly site:

I’m fortunate my dog who ate a dead pigeon wasn’t sick but my friends cat was very ill and a very costly vet bill.
and Jo Brosnahan also from Rothesay Bay wrote:

I contacted both DOC and the Council yesterday. Two drugged pigeons were pecked to death yesterday afternoon on Rothesay Bay Beach, amid another 3 carcasses. There was a dead seagull further down the beach and a dead penguin. I was concerned not just about the cruelty to the pigeons but also with impact on the food chain; other wildlife, dogs and children on the beach.  The Council Actionline said it was not their area  and put me on to DOC. DOC have advised this morning that they and the council and police are aware of the situation and it is suspected to be a poison, alphachloralose, aimed at the pigeons. I would observe that the poisoning is still occurring, so be aware of this if you are going to the Browns Bay or Rothesay Bay beaches.  I cannot imagine who would think this is an ok thing to do!

Lorraine Cunniffe , another resident from Rothesay Bay,  added:

It is so disturbing to witness this cruelty in our beautiful neighbour hood. Early evening yesterday dead birds in clear view by the playground and beach at Rothesay also seagull pecked remains. Young family’s on their beach walks so upset to see this 😔

Browns Bay resident and co-ordinator of the local community group Friends of Sherwood, Tricia Cheel, is not so sure that it can be attributed to alphachloralose if a pigeon carcass has made a cat so ill and indeed if the penguin also died of poison, and notes that the council has recently also deposited many bait stations along the beach front, and even playgrounds in these areas, and  she is presently nursing a young wood pigeon that was found on Saturday night unable to fly and very unbalanced and distressed.

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(Image to left) Named Boris he (or she?) will be available for interview by appointment only! 
Note the golden tufts of baby feathers and contemplate how anyone in their right mind would risk harming him / her.
 
Whatever the truth of the matter is it is but a mere whiff of the full horror of having these poisons used so freely throughout the  country and Friends of Sherwood say that their proposed Citizens Initiated Referendum to ban all cruel and inhumane poisons is long overdue and look forward to the question being put to all New Zealand voters just as soon as possible.
 
Unfortunately it will take time to collect the 320,000 signatures needed but it is hoped that the whole process may be circumvented sooner rather  than later,  by Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, who has said her government embodies kindness as well as strength, and it gives her the opportunity to demonstrate both those characteristics by acting immediately to put an end to the torture thousands of animals suffer every day, both in suburbia and in the wild.
The proposal complies with the requirements of the House of Representatives and the Office of the Clerk has advised that the question will go out for public comment on Wednesday 21st November by way of advertisements in national newspapers and notification in the New Zealand Gazette.
People will have until 11th January to comment on the wording with the final question being determined by 7th February 2019; after which time Friends of Sherwood will have 12 months to collect the necessary signatures of 10% of all eligible voters.
Co-ordinator of the group since it began in June 1990, Tricia Cheel says that although they twice successfully delayed the drop of 1080  poison in the Hunuas with interim injunctions, it eventually went ahead leaving two more families devastated by the cruel loss of their beloved dogs, and further down the line a further 8 cows were gruesomely tortured to death by this same poison dropped indiscriminately by helicopter, while countless more animals suffered agonizing deaths, mostly unseen and unheard, in the forests.
Banning the deadly 1080 poison will only go part way to addressing the problem since as more and more animals are demonised in the headlong  rush to be predator free by 2050, many more animals are set to suffer similar fates with other equally cruel poisons, including brodifacoum, pindone, cholecalciferol and PAPP,  with the latter specifically targeting cats.
The unfortunate by-kill includes many of the species that are purportedly being ‘protected’,  but even without that  inconvenient truth, as the question states, the intense and prolonged suffering these poisons inflict can never be justified.