Wednesday, May 25, 2011

1080 poison: Science and Facts

Dr Jo Pollard (BSc (Hons, PhD) has spent 2 years analysing and investigating the evidence and research presented to the ERMA reassessment on 1080 use in New Zealand.  She has just loaded the ERMA science to a website www.1080science.co.nz
In part of her press release, yesterday, Dr. Pollard stated ...


"Our remaining native species need all the genetic diversity they have if they are to survive forthcoming challenges such as drought, storms, disease and habitat modification, therefore they should be managed with extreme care. New, unique species are still being discovered regularly, making nonsense of claims that DoC knows what its doing with aerially spread poisons. DoC’s legal duty under the Conservation Act is to manage natural resources for conservation purposes so their willingness to allow the killing of massive numbers of native animals is nothing short of criminal." ...

Click here to read her full report
Press release - 1080 poison: Science and Facts

More and more evidence against the use of 1080 poison continues to surface. 
Thank goodness for honest and brave scientists like Dr Pollard, willing to put truth ahead of inDoCtrination, and the status-quo. 

Thursday, May 19, 2011

FILM NIGHT - PRE SHAKESPEARE PARK POISON DROP

16.5 tonnes of toxic brodifacoum bait will be dropped across Shakespeare Park, on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, in the coming months.

Steve and I have been requested by locals from the area to hold a talk, and screen our documentary,  Poisoning Paradise.

In a recent study - Environmental fate and residual persistence of brodifacoum in wildlife ... it is stated...

"Research over the last 10 years indicates that the contamination of non-target wildlife
by the anticoagulant rodenticide brodifacoum is likely to be widespread and mediated
through a wider range of environmental transfer pathways than are currently described,
e.g. invertebrates as vectors of residues."

"Despite New Zealand field research in the 1990s that demonstrated secondary mortality
in some non-target species, and the occurrence of residual brodifacoum in a range of
wildlife, there has been little ongoing monitoring or investigation of the longer-term
implications of the continued field use of brodifacoum for possum and rodent control."

The study was investigating brofiacoum poison used in bait stations in the Hawkes Bay.

The Shakespeare drop is an aerial drop involving 16.5 tonnes of poisonous bait,
in a fenced off area on the end the the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, in north Auckland.

Shakespeare Park is an area of around 550 hectares, and a predator-proof fence currently under construction, will be completed sometime next month.

The issue is - why is this pest eradication project, in a built-up part of Auckland, being undertaken using aerially applied brodifacoum poison?

Ulva Island (near Stewart Island) is 1075 hectares, and more remote. It was declared pest free in 1997, and more pertinent, it was eradicated by ground controlled methods, not aerially applied poisons. If it can be done down there, why not up in the popular, accessible, Shakespeare Park?

The meeting and film night will be held on Thursday the 26th of May, at the Manly Methodist Hall, 
945 Whangaparaoa Rd, Manly.  Kick off, 7pm.