Skeptics take on the anti-1080 nutters, and others

[sinfull]

But what about the shellfish ??
Three or four paragraphs too many Hitch !!
NZ, or should i say DOC has made a commitment to deal to pests in order to save native bird life !!! (If only we had that right in the local pubs as teens).
Many are against it, most of them own guns (like i'd argue with them person to person), many more stay silent !
I, like many i know, have watched quietly for years, have seen many fuck ups, but i will have to agree, the pro's overcome any arguement the naysayers come up with !!!
It's working !!!

[98tls]

Can we move on to the Dairy farmers now?

[LBD]

I am fortunate to have spent a good amount of time on a deer, possum and preditor free island Secretary, and in what is called a mainland Island...the Landsborough Valley.

The contrast between these places and areas plagued with deer, possums, rats, stoats, mice etc, has to be seen to be beleived. The bird song in the morning is amazing, the bush is so dense you cannot walk through it. A regular valley is quiet vy compariso and the bush is "open" because of the deer and possum browsing...

1080 is not perfect, I know this, but it has made an impact for the better to the NZ environjment, and without a better alternitive, I support its use.

[Blackbird]

The Coromandel would be a perfect place to live if it didn't attract a fair number of the type of rabid greenie who doesn't like solid evidence getting in the way of a good story. Letters to the Editor on the Peninsula newspapers are chokka every bloody week with emotive stuff on 1080 with not a fact in sight. Big placards on people's lawns too.

A nationally well-known Coro greenie who will remain nameless did their reputation a bit of damage in the 90's for publicly condemning the company I worked for for logging native trees. Trouble is, we were logging plantation radiata pine that we owned and replanted. No apology or retraction of course.

I'm all for a strong environmental stance, just not the idiots who think that facts are an inconvenience (a bit like some people on KB really)

[Pussy]

As far as the LD50 of 1080 baits goes.... humans would die of indigestion before the 1080 will kill them.
1080 is such an effective dog killer... because that's what it was originally intended to do.
The greatest wilderness area in the world is the space between greenies' ears

[Mully]

Yea a little but this thread reminded me of the good ole days (yea i know) of the many still existing Rabbit board houses/Tussock board etc,instead of the all to easy to get welfare system paying out for no return some of them could be allocated/relocated to such areas to deal with such pests.

I actually just had the same thought. Put some unemployed people out to trap the possums and pay them a dollar a pelt.

[NC]

I'm torn about the usage of 1080.
The way I look at it is that it's great for dense forrest and hard to reach areas of NZ. But as for using it because they can't be arsed employing trappers in all the other areas is crap.

[Lias]

I'm all for the compulsory feeding of 1080 to all the zealot greenies that oppose it.....

[rainman]

I'm in two minds about the 1080 debate. Possums are a big problem, and need a big solution. Being in general kinda non- or low-interventionist, I tend to think that more of getting the unemployed to go trapping, and less of the 1080, would be a better approach. However, I'm no expert.

Wrong. It does break down. Rainfall breaks it down very quickly.

The info available to me regarding 1080 breakdown is somewhat ambiguous (and in one case, apparent crap). You seem confident about this point, though: so what is your understanding of the chemistry involved?

The MSDS for 1080 says "Slightly soluble in water and in ethanol". (And also: "Extremely hazardous","Very toxic by inhalation, ingestion or through skin absorption. Estimated lethal dose in humans is in the region of 2-10 mg/kg").

Wrong. Nobody else is trying to eradicate a pest mammal.

Ummm, heard of rats? Furry brown/black things, teeth, tails, fond of cheese, carry diseases? Not very popular in most parts?

[NDORFN]

1080 breaksdown in Water.

I work with the shit and unless you are a possum you are fine.

I'll bring some of the technical data home with me tomorrow but a deer would have to consume somat like 60kg of 1080 impregnated carrot to die and EVEN THEN you would have to eat somat like 3 entire deer to feel ill from it.

I'll be back with the facts and I suggest the nay sayers get their facts straight too before saying what a bad bastard 1080 is.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story eh?

Yeah you WOULD support it's use considering you're tied into financial gain from it.

[ready4whatever]

Member of NZDA here. So you already know im against it. It wipes out everything in the area where it is dropped, no fibs. Take a walk in the bush before its dropped and you hear native birds calling and see native pigeons flying around, after you dont hear shit. Plus all deer sign dissapears :-( .seen a few dead deer from it. Set up programmes for young hunters to go out and have a blast, while making money from the fur. As for the unreachable places im not sure. There are still native birds, not to mention deer that can be accessed by chopper. Must be a better way. Make a virus that only possums catch and die from? too much red tape i suppose. or those new traps that only need setting after 10 pests are killed, CO2 cylinder ones, 1000's of them. Don't let the government tell you they cant afford it

[ready4whatever]

I'm all for the compulsory feeding of 1080 to all the zealot greenies that oppose it.....

I oppose it, no greenies over here. If you think its so great why dont you eat it. or lets sell it to the teleban to make weopens, stuff it into a rocket. They used it in the great war to poison water holes. Do you really want that shit around. Thats it im going up on top of a mountain...

[ready4whatever]

toxic shit

[ready4whatever]

1080 breaksdown in Water.

I work with the shit and unless you are a possum you are fine.

I'll bring some of the technical data home with me tomorrow but a deer would have to consume somat like 60kg of 1080 impregnated carrot to die and EVEN THEN you would have to eat somat like 3 entire deer to feel ill from it.

I'll be back with the facts and I suggest the nay sayers get their facts straight too before saying what a bad bastard 1080 is.

So the deer I've seen poisoned from it ate 60 kg of it? OKAY. and that dead horse would of ate about 120 kg of it aye? thats alot of carrots my friend. and about those facts that you have taken from another source... I've seen first hand what it does so your facts dont ad up. You should wtness it first hand before you take in those 'facts'

[Bounce001]

1080 is bloody horrible stuff. I have been in bush where 1080 has been dropped and it is silent - no birds at all. When they do aerial drops they say they don't drop over waterways. Their definition of waterways is any thing over 2 metres wide. There are many streams in New Zealand bush under this and it is being filled with 1080. There are other options for poisoning available to eradicate possums (eg Feratox) that are much safer and won't kill everything in its path.
I have also been told that New Zealand will keep using 1080 because the company that makes it s own by some very influential people (government ministers?)
Trapping is a good option, especially when possum fur is worth over $80/kg. Good pelts are worth ever more. Possum fur is one of the warmest natural fibres because it is hollow and retains the heat.

Next time you go for a ride on a cold day and put your possum socks on, think about how the possum was killed to get the fur. Who cares if was humane or not (they are possums after all!), but what else was killed (endangered native birds?) because of 1080 to get one or two possums.