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Throwing
1080 poison on our world
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Compound 1080 was originally made as a rat poison
The Nazis considered using it to kill people in
Holocaust death camps before deciding it was too dangerous for the guards,
New Zealand throw it on there forests.
Its Madness ........Stop it .......Now
Its
totally counter productive to our environment
Its
got to be wrong to poison possums, pigs, deer, kiwi and bird species with 1080
poison, it is cruel, inhuman and harmful to
New Zealand’s tourist economy
My reason for doing
this is because upon returning to New Zealand with my wife to see the beauty and
wildlife ...especially the birds. this year
we revisited the spots we had visited before straight
away we could see there was less birds. worse was everywhere there was the
smell of decaying flesh
Bodies
were laying all around and were contaminated by the poison anything eating from
them eats a dose of 1080 ...
There is no
antidote
can you believe
that?
If you think that's bad read on ,it gets worse...Its
thrown in huge amounts from helicopters over the national parks
The poison is all over the floor of the forest as well as in streams for any
child to pick up or dog to eat fish to nibble at , robin to peck ,as well as for
the intended victim the possums
Honest I kid you not New
Zealandwho
advertise themselves as the place for environmentalists do this .
1080
is a
poison that is known to enter the food chain... when used in
America it quickly got in and killed bald eagles as well as , bats and
beetles that fed on the dead body's
Now in the US they have recognised the dangers of and
only use it in sealed packets around a sheep’s neck they now when they use the
poison have to recover the body and burn or bury it deeply.
I asked at a DoC
office [New Zealand’s equivalent of the environment agency] and was astonished
to find they tell the public a pack of lies,
they even said it didn’t affect New Zealand’s bats but
study’s have shown that eating affected insects kills them, and who knows what
the long term effects would be on New Zealand’s national bird the kiwi that eats
insects.
We and many other visitors’ from bird watchers,
fishermen and even hunters that I have spoken to are shocked that this goes on
so please New Zealand if you value the tourist dollars it brings in from people
like us who love your wild life STOP
Throwing
1080 poison on our world
Its
Madness ........Stop it .......Now
nigel.hembury@mypostoffice.co.uk
. Tull
Chemical Co. is the only known producer of Compound 1080, a small
Oxford USAfactory
which produces deadly 1080 poison it was developed as a rat poison in
German-occupied territories during World War II.
The other
side of the world compound 1080 is used widely in New Zealand to control outdoor
predators and pests. It is just thrown from helicopters/planes on to huge areas
of forest Animal welfare groups and other environmentalists say it should again
be outlawed because it kills too indiscriminately. And the dead bodies kill
creatures that feed on them and pollute the water sources of locals There is no
known antidote for this lethal poison - one teaspoonful could kill dozens. Help
stop this madness now please
Its a
odourless, tasteless poison Compound 1080 — the most toxic pesticide registered
by the World Health Organization — could be used by terrorists to poison U.S.
water supplies. There is no known antidote for this lethal poison - one
teaspoonful could kill dozens. anyone can pick up bucketfuls in the forests Help
stop this madness now please
He
reinforced the buildings and installed a chain-link fence topped by barbed-wire
after an EPA review noted inadequate security and other problems.
The
U.S. customer is the Department of
Agriculture, which is reported to use less than four tablespoons of Compound
1080 annually in sheep collars. The collars have 1080 in them to kill coyotes by
poisoning them when they bite an animal's throat.
New
Zealand. On the other hand import up to five
tons of the poison annually
You can inhale it, absorb it through skin contact and
ingest it (usually inadvertently).
.
Exposure can occur during transfer of the freshly prepared
baits from the mixing
Machine to the aircraft or loader bucket. The freshly cut
carrot surfaces may be
Moist and not completely absorb all the 1080 solution. The
baits can drip quite
Readily
A second potential 1080 hazard is the airborne dust
generated when emptying the
Bags of dry pellets, often at face-level, into the
aircraft or loader bucket. The
Proximity of the hopper to the aircraft propeller or
helicopter rotor blade may
Increase the dispersion of dust or contaminated soil
particles, due to induced air
Currents.
There may also be the possibility of inadvertent oral
intake from hands
Contaminated either directly or indirectly from clothing...
This is what
it does
Seven kea
have died at Fox Glacier after eating 1080 poison, wiping out almost half a
group of the endangered and protected parrot being monitored by the Conservation
Department.
DOC is
reviewing its use of the poison after the deaths were revealed in a draft
internal report, obtained by The Dominion Post. The report says "aerial 1080 may
well be a significant threat to the kea population" with some drops "probably
devastating".
DOC fitted radio transmitters to 29
West Coast kea - 10 in
Arawhata
Valley,
two in the
Hohonu
Range,
and 17 near Fox Glacier - to see if they survived 1080 drops. All birds in the
first two areas survived, but seven near the glacier died.
Testing confirmed 1080 poisoning.
The report says birds living near Fox Glacier take 1080 bait.
Compound 1080 is classified as a chemical weapon in several countries. And is
highly toxic to birds and mammals.
Carcasses with Compound 1080 must be handled as hazardous waste and, if
ingested, can kill wolves and other animals.
It's been
called "one of the most dangerous [toxins] known to man," and it was banned in
1972 after it killed 13 people. It is used legally by only one group in the
U.S. — the USDA
This is what
Compound 1080 does
It causes
vomiting, convulsions and collapse.
Heart
failure is usually the cause of death.
It is so
potent that animals eating tainted carcasses — even months after that poisoned
animal has died — can die of secondary poisoning. Endangered California Condors
have been found dead this way. Outrageous!!!
Scientists
have speculated that Compound 1080, because it is odourless and tasteless, could
be mixed in with water supplies in a terrorist attack. This is insane, let
alone irresponsible.
See
what's really happening in NZ's bush & beyond as hundreds of thousands of
hectares of bush and wilderness areas are bombarded with this insidious poison.
Is this the
New Zealand you want to live in or
visit?
Its use
was reintroduced in the
U.S. in the early 1980s to kill
predators. Since then it has also killed pet dogs and turned up in former
dictator Saddam Hussein's chemical laboratories in
Iraq.
It can
take hours or days for an affected animal to die. Compound 1080 cause vomiting,
convulsions and collapse. Heart failure is usually the cause of death. It is so
potent, according to Fahy, that animals eating tainted carcasses — even months
after that poisoned animal has died — can die of secondary poisoning.
After the substance's reintroduction, Predator Defence successfully campaigned
to have Compound 1080's use banned in
Oregon in 1998. However there has been
evidence that the substance has been used illegally to kill federally protected
wolves, eagles and other predators as well as domestic pets across the West,
says Fahy.
Scientists have speculated that Compound 1080, because it is odourless and
tasteless, could be mixed in with water supplies in a terrorist attack. "It's
been called a great tool for assassination and it's difficult to find in the
body
This
isn't just a wildlife issue it's a national security issue.
Local people say
"We're not
going to back down. We don't want 1080 in our water. This is our livelihood, our
income,"
We say: The
NZ government has been using 1080 poison for almost 50 years and it hasn't
worked. The possum is still there - an excuse for a multi-million dollar pest
control industry money-go-round. Many thousands of dollars have been paid out to
farmers for past compensation claims for stock or dogs poisoned by 1080.
1080 is a
cruel killer, too many "accidents" have occurred in the past. New Zealanders
have had enough!
Once those
poison pellets are dropped from that helicopter there is no control over them.
Legally, you need a license to handle the stuff but once it's out there over the
hills anyone can go for a short walk to collect the pellets and do whatever they
like with them. Take as an example, a dog hater sick of their neighbour's
barking dogs. He could go & collect some & chuck it over the fence to solve the
problem. Someone mentally unstable could use it to poison someone. Even kids can
pick it up.
Biggest
concerns are:
The unknown long-term effects of 1080 on our environment, the indiscriminate
killing of non-target species, birds, deer, dogs, etc.
The continual and irresponsible application of 1080 in and around our water
supplies, and its effect on future NZ exports, tourism and the destruction of
our clean, green image. Also, the ridiculous fact that this deadly poison
dropped so irresponsibly from the sky has NO antidote.
Please stop
destroying our wildlife keep
New Zealand’s forest ecosystems
poison free
The science
Patricia
Whiting-OKeefe, PhD (Chemistry) is former associate professor at San Francisco
State University and Director, Stanford Research Institute.
Quinn
Whiting-OKeefe, BA (Chemistry, Math), MA (Math), MD, FACMI, is former associate
professor of Medical Information Science and Medicine at the University of
California, San Francisco where he specialized in statistical inference and
research design. Both live in Port Charles, Coromandel.
.1080
poisons all oxygen metabolizing organisms by blocking the conversion of food
into energy. Officially, this aerial poisoning of our forests is being done to
control possums (although the rationalizations and claims of DoC often go well
beyond that).
DoC asserts
that only possums and other so called “pests” are significantly poisoned.
As a
life-long environmentalists, I was stuck that this contention appears to violate
the most fundamental ecological principles as well as common sense. Is it
plausible that one could drop high protein; high carbohydrate food mixed with a
poison that kills all animals into a semi-tropical ecosystem and only negatively
affect possums and other “pests”? Scientists have a saying, “Extraordinary
claims require extraordinary evidence.” Thus, we resolved to determine whether
the extraordinary claims of DoC have the weight of extraordinary evidence behind
them. The answer is unequivocal: they do not.
After months
of investigation, we found that DoC’s 1080 research sustained five truly
astonishing conclusions[*].First,
there is not a single scientifically credible study showing that use of aerial
1080 on the mainland is of net benefit to any species of New Zealand’s native
fauna … not one. We have challenged DoC to produce even one scientific study in
even one species that supports their claims for the benefit and necessity for
1080.They have yet to respond.
Second,
there is overwhelming evidence from DoC’s own research that aerial 1080 are
killing large numbers of native animals, including birds, insects and other
invertebrates, and our only native mammals, three species of bats. In addition
most native vertebrate species and thousands of invertebrate species are
entirely unstudied.
Third, there
is not a single ecosystem level study showing lack of harm from repeated
‘treatments’ of mainland forests with aerial 1080, let alone one showing the
overwhelming beneficial effects that DoC claims.
Fourth, it
is probable that possums, if left unchecked by natural predators, would over
time do substantial damage to our forests, but the degree of that damage is
unknown, and whether that damage is being controlled with aerial 1080 without
concurrent unacceptable and irreversible damage to the forest ecosystem is
entirely unaddressed by DoC’s research.
Fifth, DoC’s
1080 research, in addition to its generally poor scientific quality, is biased
and does not actually prove what DoC claims that it does.
In short
there is nothing in the scientific record that remotely would justify the
following statement from DoC’s May 14 press release:" Without 1080, the price
New Zealanders would have to pay in the loss of their unique species and
habitats is too awful to contemplate." In fact, DoC’s own science tells a grim
story quite to the contrary.
DoC
habitually, publicly and aggressively misrepresents what its research shows.
A typical example recently occurred on the national radio programme Radio New
Zealand. Al Morrison, Director General of DoC, stated
that if we want to have kiwis, then 1080 is the price. This assertion borders on
the absurd. There is not one stitch of scientific evidence showing that
applications of aerial 1080 benefit kiwis, and there is a sound scientific
argument that they may be profoundly harmful.
In another
example, DoC claims in its ERMA submission “that robin nesting success more than
compensates for any robin losses from 1080”.This is not born out by the
evidence. The study that DoC cites showed increased nesting success in 1 of 3
years, but even that single success failed to translate into increased robin
population success -- the real bottom line. The study also showed that 54% of
banded robins died in the 1080 poisoned area compared to none in the un-poisoned
area.
DoC claims
that the tomtit, a ground feeding native bird, is not affected by aerial 1080
bait, and cites a study done by Westbrook in 2005 to prove that. However, the
data in the published paper actually shows that substantial numbers of tomtits
could be being killed even by low concentration cereal baits, and much more
important it shows that about 40% of tomtits died when exposed to low
concentration carrot baits! Yet this is never mentioned by DoC (or by the
Forests and Birds organization, DoC’s principle apologist), nor is it mentioned
in the Abstract section of the paper. Carrot bait is still in widespread use by
DoC.
DoC claims
that bats are unaffected by aerial 1080.However, a well done 2002 study by Lloyd
and McQueen showed that bats were clearly poisoned secondarily by eating
affected insects. The study gave a “best estimate” that 14% of bats would be
killed in 14 foraging flights in a 1080 poisoned area, and who knows what the
long term sub lethal effects would be of the repeated exposures to which DoC
subjects them.
There is
even substantial evidence that DoC has suppressed critical research unfavourable
to its aerial 1080 agenda. This research on invertebrates, the category of
animals that includes insects, worms and spiders is perhaps the most disturbing.
In 1992, M Meads completed a study for DoC that showed approximately 50%
mortality among forest invertebrates, in particular insects from a single aerial
1080 “treatment”. The most severely affected species included beetles, bees,
ants, butterflies, moths, springtails, flies and spiders.
DoC refused
to allow the resulting paper to be published. At the same time they commissioned
a similar study which was structured to have virtually no chance of detecting
the high mortality seen in the Meads study. The resulting poorly designed and
analyzed study remains the sole evidence that New Zealand’s indiscriminate use
of a poison originally developed as an insecticide is not devastating our forest
invertebrates.
The
implications of this are truly disturbing given that insects and other
invertebrates are the backbone of forest ecosystems and given that DoC is
mandated by law to protect native species and biodiversity. In fact DoC’s use of
aerial 1080 over the intervening 15 years has probably already done irreversible
damage to the diversity of our native invertebrates. If there were no truth in
the rest of this article, this point alone should be enough to bring an
immediate halt to the poisoning of our forests with 1080.
The
misrepresentation, distortion, suppression and biased reporting live in a
hierarchy. To illustrate this we will analyze a claim in considerable detail,
more than is desirable for easy reading, but we believe that this level of
granularity is essential to make the point tangible. We could have picked any of
hundreds of such claims, but this one is typical both in respect to the quality
of the science and its relationship to the claims made for it. Consider an
assertion that we recently received by email from a member of the F&B Society:
“…without 1080 we have lost
parakeets, kaka, kokako, blue duck and at least 5 native forest plants at
Aongatete in the Kalmia. With 1080 we have recovered kokako, kaka, parakeets and
blue duck at Pereira and kaka at Whirinaki … anybody advocating against 1080 at
this juncture is putting our natural heritage at risk. To do so is hypocrisy
[sic] at the best and sabotage at the worst.”
We could
find only one study that deserved the name and that examined the effect of
aerial 1080 on the populations of kaka and kereru (also known as kukupa) in
Whirinaki Forest Park. In the study, Powlesland et al radio-tagged the birds and
used one poisoned area and one un-poisoned control area and tracked these birds
over three breeding seasons following poisoning in one area and observation only
in the single control area.
Hence from
its basic design, this study contains a fatal statistical error, namely lack of
replication and/or randomisation of study and control areas. In addition, when
the authors reported on the nesting success and fledgling survival for the
radio-tagged birds, incredibly, the authors did not distinguish the data from
the poisoned and un-poisoned areas.
Instead they
only reported the combined results from both the treatment and non-treatment
areas. This extraordinary choice is not justified in the text. One wonders what
the data actually show that the authors were so anxious not to report. In any
case, this study demonstrates absolutely nothing about the impact of aerial 1080
on the nesting success or populations of kaka and kereru. Despite this the
authors (who were, as usual, sponsored by DoC) go on to conclude in the last
sentence of the paper’s abstract.
Effective control of introduced
mammalian predators … should benefit these bird populations.
Given this
level of biased reporting, it is curious that the authors did not just falsify
the results and have done with it.
On the other
hand, there were some interesting observations derivable from the study’s
reported data that shed considerable doubt on the rationale used by DoC to
justify their $80 million per year pest control efforts. One observation was
that rat population numbers recovered within 14 months of the poisoning relative
to the non-poisoned area. This is, of course, expected given the remarkable
reproductive capacity of rats, but it flies directly in the face of DoC’s claims
that populations of birds will benefit from triennial poisoning of the forest
with aerial 1080.
Another
observation was that mustelid (stoat) numbers actually seemed to increase in
the treatment area. Why this happened is uncertain, but the phenomenon has
variably been noted in other studies. Of course, one can imagine scenarios
wherein poisoning of the forest might result in such a result, e.g., dead bird
carcasses provide easy food for mustelids or competition for food from rats and
possums is decreased. Regardless, more mustelids would not seem to bode well for
native birds as mustelids are known to be major predators of native birds and
their eggs.
With
perspicacity, Zavaleta, a respected international ecologist, pointed out the
principle grammar school student of the essentially cybernetic nature of
ecosystems (a characteristic all but ignored in DoC’s simplistic, univariate
view):
When exotic predators and prey
co-occur, eradication of only the exotic prey can also cause problems by forcing
the predator to switch to native prey. In New Zealand, introduced rats R. rattus
and possums Trichosurus vulpecular are an important part of the diet of the
stoat Mustela ermina, an exotic mustelid ([7]).Efforts
to remove all three species by poisoning the prey species had an unexpected
result: the stoat populations were not eliminated by either the prey eradication
or the poison application and, in the absence of abundant exotic prey, the
stoats switched their diets to native birds and bird eggs.
Or as Murphy
et al put it:
Stoats shifted between eating rats
and birds, depending upon the abundance of rats. Thus successful rat-poisoning
operations resulted in higher bird consumption than unsuccessful ones. Combining
the numerical and functional responses of stoats into a 'bird predation index'
showed that stoats are likely to have the greatest effect on birds after
successful 1080 poison operations.
So how did
Powlesland, et al react to their and others’ evidence of increased numbers of
stoats? Essentially, they ignored it, but this did not prevent LCR employee John
McLennan from claiming in a NZ Herald article that 1080 is “having marked
success in controlling rats and stoats and helping kiwi populations grow.”Of
course McLennan cited only an unpublished, unrandomised, unblinded,
statistically moot “study” which did not pretend, even anecdotally, to show a
differential effect on kiwi populations.
Returning to
Powlesland and the kaka and kereru, the authors, unable to claim success in
showing the desired effect, cited other studies as showing native bird
population benefit from aerial 1080.One of these studies claimed population
improvement for the kereru but did not look at the kaka. This research by Innes
et al studied twelve bird species, both native and non-native. However, the
study was flawed in several ways. First, the study design is such that
statistically valid conclusions are impossible.
There was
only one control and one treatment area, which means that any observed
population differences between control and poisoned areas might have been simply
due to inherent differences between the areas studied, a fact that the authors
all but admit in a single sentence in the methods section of the paper, but
otherwise ignore. Second, the treated and control areas were very
different. This is substantiated by the very large differences in populations of
the studied birds in the two areas. Third, the author’s main analysis of the
results used the wrong statistical model -- they used an area/year interaction
term as an independent variable that is thus unable to isolate area effects,
i.e., the difference between treated and untreated areas.
Lastly the
authors misrepresented their own results. The title proudly proclaims the native
population benefit, but they fail to note that populations of two species of
native birds decreased significantly, according to their analysis. However, we
don’t need to pay much attention to that as such since their analysis was
erroneous anyway, but the point is that the authors selectively reported their
results to support their sponsor’s agenda. The authors presumably did not know
that their study was fatally flawed in design and that they had used the wrong
statistical technique.
In summary,
not only did the design of the Powlesland and Innes studies preclude valid
conclusions, but the authors incorrectly analyzed their results and even then
cherry-picked the answers ignoring their own evidence of damage to at least some
native species. Taken together the studies show how one bad study references and
misquotes another even worse study so that in the end they become one big
self-reinforcing rumour that has no basis in scientific evidence whatsoever.
DoC tendency
to misrepresent is endemic: Combine the above examples with dozens like them and
it becomes clear that DoC is not being straight with the people of New Zealand.
To test this conclusion, we systematically reviewed 40 randomly selected pages
from DoC’s 1080 reassessment application submitted to Environmental Risk
Management Authority (ERMA) in October 2006.We found that fully 58% of pages
contained serious distortion, misrepresentation or other errors of various
kinds. Of these, 36% were outright misrepresentations (typified by the
previously mentioned examples), 23% were factual errors, 20% were
misrepresentation by omission, and the rest were unsupported claims.
The
hierarchy of misrepresentation. First, the researchers, who are dependent on DoC
for their jobs, conduct what are often marginally designed studies to (as one
paper put it) “prove the benefits” of 1080.Second, they analyze their data with
what appears to be bias. Third, the Abstract and Discussion sections of their
papers almost never mention facts adverse to DoC’s 1080 promotion agenda, i.e.,
they cherry-pick the results. When one reads the actual papers this becomes
evident (as in the case of the kaka detailed above). Fourth, DoC takes this
distorted and biased view of what the research actually shows and spins it
almost beyond recognition.
Fifth, the
public and the press, who in most cases actually believe what they have been
told, take the final step of accepting and repeating totally unsupportable
claims such as that 1080 has saved numerous native birds from extinction. The
truth thus proceeds from bad research by tainted researchers, into the DoC
bureaucracy which distorts the information to suit its bureaucratic agenda,
which then passes it off at considerable expense to the New Zealand public
through an all too willing and uncritical press. Thus it is not surprising that
we have a goodly supply of New Zealanders who in all sincerity believe with
religious fervour that aerial 1080 is a magic elixir for our forest ecosystems.
New
Zealand is unique in the world in its use of aerial 1080.No other country is
doing or has done anything remotely similar to what New Zealand’s Department of
Conservation is doing, that is, dropping food laced with tonnes of a universal
toxin discriminately into semitropical forest ecosystems. New Zealand uses over
85% of the world’s supply of 1080, a poison that is toxic to all animals, a
poison that is banned or severely restricted in most countries, and a poison
that is classified “extremely hazardous” by the World Health Organization. In
response to this, DoC asserts that
New Zealand is in a unique
ecological position, but this is simply not true.
For example,
the State of
Hawaii has an almost identical problem with
feral mammals threatening native birds, and we learned that
Hawaii would not even consider such a
practice. As Miles Nakahara, Forest & Wildlife branch manager on the Island of
Hawaii, commented to us, “You are pretty cavalier using a poison like that … you
will be destroying the forest … you will lose the very thing you are trying to
save.”Nakahara’s forecast should prey deeply on minds of environmentally
conscientious Kiwi.
There are
other trolls under the bridge. First, there are hundreds of native species for
which there is no information at all. Even the advocacy research sponsored by
DoC has not been done. Second, research indicates that 1080 in sub lethal doses
can cause reproductive dysfunction, hormonal dysfunction, and mutations in
several vertebrate species.
DoC has not
seen fit to investigate the extent to which these may be affecting native
species via chronic exposure even though its stated intention is to “treat” our
forests with 1080 poisoning every two or three years into the indefinite future.
We can only speculate on the long term and chronic effects of these sub lethal
doses of 1080 on our native species (not to speak of potential human effects).
It is an act of colossal hubris on the part of DoC bureaucrats to assume that
these are negligible.
Third, with
apparently unashamed arrogance, DoC actually managed to have Richard Sadlier,
who was director of DoC research when the Meads paper was suppressed in the
1990’s, appointed to the ERMA review committee for aerial 1080 as its only
biological scientist. Thus, the man who was as much as anyone responsible for
creating and promoting DoC’s current use of aerial 1080 is being asked to judge
the validity of that policy.
As
previously suggested, the scientific quality of DoC’s research
is shockingly shoddy. As suggested above, most of it only reaches the
lowest levels of control quality. There is not one randomized or blinded
experiment (the minimal design considered acceptable in modern clinical
research).Most studies have no control groups at all. Statistics are often
poorly done, absent or selectively reported. Results are frequently
misrepresented and distorted, often with clear bias. The studies are short term
and narrow in scope.
There are
numerous errors of statistical inference. None of the research is published in
international journals. Roughly half of the studies are only published
internally by DoC or Land care Research (LCR).None of the research addresses the
potential consequences to native fauna of chronic toxicity although sub-lethal
doses have been shown to lead to changes that could result in chronic toxicity
in a number of species including birds. Finally, the entire lot, excepting one
or two papers, has been produced by scientists who are dependent on DoC’s
goodwill for their jobs, which means that these papers’ results are inherently
tainted by the lack of financial and career independence of the researchers.
It is
important to recognize that some of the research is of excellent quality,
especially from a biological stand point, for example the paper of McQueen and
Lloyd (3).However, most of the research fails to meet modern standards of study
design and analysis, making it particularly vulnerable to the biases of the
researchers and thus the sponsoring agency, DoC.
The bottom
line is that DoC’s advocacy research supporting its practice of the repeated
poisoning of our forest ecosystems with aerial 1080 has a very low probability
of producing truth. Indeed it is not exaggerated to say that the strongest
argument supporting DoC’s use of aerial 1080 is the cacophony of advocacy
persistently emanating from DoC, which of course is at considerable public
expense.
Do possums
need to be controlled? The answer is likely yes. However, the evidence is
inconclusive and often suffers from obvious researcher bias. The theoretical
argument that possum numbers will be limited to some extent by food supply in
the absence of predators suggests that certain species of trees may be adversely
affected and in the long term may be replaced by species more resistant to
possum predation. In one large study, possum numbers declined naturally after
about 20 years of infestation without intervention. The hyperbolic statements by
DoC that the forest is about to collapse in the absence of aerial 1080 are
patently false.
If one
accepts the (unproven) contentions that possums must be controlled and that
aerial 1080 will do the job, critical questions still remain. Is there a safer
alternative than subjecting the fauna of our forest ecosystems to triennial
aerial 1080? The answer here is absolutely yes. In 2003, a comprehensive Animal
Health Board-funded study showed that even in the roughest terrain, ground-based
possum control is possible for a $20-per-hectare differential in cost.
Nationally, this translates into about $36 million annually.
Is it worth
$36 million per year to protect our forest ecosystems from repeated assaults
with a universal poison which is killing thousands of native birds, 50% of
invertebrates, and 14% of our unique native bats? We say unquestionably yes. DoC
and its apologist, the
Forest and Birds Society, apparently do not think so.
There are other possibilities as well such as developing species specific bait
stations and traps, and encouraging a domestic possum pelt industry.
But what
about AHB’s concerns regarding bovine Tb? AHB’s own research has shown that
spread of the disease by possums to cattle can be controlled effectively by
concentrating on controlling the possum population at the forest pasture
margins. Possums once infected may die too quickly to sustain a reservoir of
1080 in the deep bush.
Control at
the margins is most effectively and safely done using ground control techniques.
Hence, we believe that ERMA’s claim that our $8 billion dollar export market is
threatened if aerial 1080 is banned is without support in either reason or
evidence. In any case, as noted above, the entire area now being poisoned with
aerial 1080 can be protected with ground-based baiting for an additional $36
million over the $80 or so million now being spent.
So why is
DoC doing this -- after all it is the Department of “Conservation”? The answer
is difficult to know with certainty. Undoubtedly many DoC employees sincerely
believe the company line. The mantra that 1080 is virtually a magic elixir for
our forests has become an integral part of
New Zealand culture. It is evident
that most do not know what the research actually shows and many are apparently
ignorant of what constitutes valid scientific evidence.
However,
there are other possibilities.DoC is a bureaucracy, and having the word
“Conservation” in its name does not make it immune to the forces that drive
bureaucracies, and that, to put it in a single phrase, is discretionary budget.
As it was put by a bureaucracy expert at the Rand Corporation (a U.S. think
tank): “While agreeing that bureaucrats hold a variety of personal goals, each
of these goals is attainable through increasing the agency’s discretionary
budget. Thus, it is in the bureaucrat’s self-interest to work toward budget
maximization. It is assumed that by doing so the bureaucrat will be able to
attain a variety of subsidiary goals, such as increasing salary, perquisites,
reputation, power, patronage, productivity, convenience, and ease of
management”.
In the early
1990’s, DoC got a budget bonanza from the New Zealand Parliament in the form of
an additional NZ$50 million dollar grant to fight possums. It was about then
that the tone of DoC-sponsored 1080 research changed from neutral investigation
to advocacy. It was also then that the Meads paper was suppressed.
The possum
control budget today probably exceeds NZ$80 million although it is difficult to
tell exactly how much is being spent. (The NZ$80 million figure certainly does
not include the relentless propaganda campaign funded at public expense.)Most
important to the bureaucracy, it is all discretionary. They can spend the money
with whomever and in whatever way they wish. As such, aerial 1080 control is a
bureaucratic motivator with irresistible force.
DoC appears
to be riding high possum scare tactics to larger and larger budgets.”
Pest” control is to DoC what the “War on Terror” is to
the Bush administration. The war will go on forever. Despite the massive use of
aerial 1080 since 1995, we still, according to DoC, have the same number of
possums, 70 million. The war is not being won or lost.
There is no
credible evidence that all the costs and risks are of net benefit and there is
important evidence that it is doing real harm. Worse,
New Zealand’s use of aerial 1080 may
quite possibly be as damaging to our forest ecosystems as Bush’s invasion of
Iraq was to the effort to reduce the
risk from radical Islamic fundamentalism … and certainly is as poorly justified
by evidence.
Save our
forests for future generations. The scientific evidence produced by DoC, while
biased, misinterpreted, shoddy and tainted by researcher sponsor-dependence,
indicates that we may be doing substantial, and possibly irreversible, damage to
our precious forest ecosystem by an unprecedented, inherently anti-environmental
practice.
What can be
done?
We need hard
facts, not vacuous promotion of a potentially disastrous practice. So we think
it is time to stop. It is time that DoC stop propagandizing us with infantile
unsupported sound bites that pander to our emotions. It is time to produce the
extraordinary evidence to support this extraordinary practice.
It is time
that every New Zealander demands the truth from DoC. It is time to stop the use
of aerial 1080 until its real effect on our forest ecosystems is demonstrated to
be positive by competent and independent scientific research. Our forests, our
unique forest ecosystems and our international reputation as an environmentally
sane nation are at stake.
Patricia
Whiting-OKeefe, PhD (Chemistry) is former associate professor at San Francisco
State University and Director, Stanford Research Institute.
Quinn
Whiting-OKeefe, BA (Chemistry, Math), MA (Math), MD, FACMI, is former associate
professor of Medical Information Science and Medicine at the University of
California, San Francisco where he specialized in statistical inference and
research design. Both live in Port Charles, Coromandel.
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