Opinion: Maryann Ewers and Bill Rooke spell out the importance of using 1080.
The debate regarding 1080 use is again Hot news and opponents are making headway via the media and some political parties. The general public are being led to believe that this issue is far more divisive than it actually is.
The greater proportion of those against its use comes from a hunting ethos that's embedded in New Zealand's culture. No amount of peer-reviewed scientific evidence or two in-depth reports have changed their opinions.
The debate regarding 1080 use is again Hot news and opponents are making headway via the media and some political parties. The general public are being led to believe that this issue is far more divisive than it actually is.
The greater proportion of those against its use comes from a hunting ethos that's embedded in New Zealand's culture. No amount of peer-reviewed scientific evidence or two in-depth reports have changed their opinions.
Quite simply, to these people, the protection of introduced game animals, to later kill at will, is more important than halting the extinction of species that evolved here millions of years ago.
Do human recreational values take precedence over the survival of these species? This is the question the public is being asked to make a judgment on.
We and many people like us, who have spent years trapping pests, not as a recreational pursuit but out of a deep felt obligation to try and save our precious native biota, have no hidden agenda.
Deer, pigs, thar, chamois, goats and wallabies are found in accessible places all over New Zealand and on DOC estate, yet an increase to 7 per cent of 1080 use on DOC land has spawned the emergence of a Ban 1080 political party and constant ridicule of our Department of Conservation (DOC), Forest and Bird and other conservation groups.
Here are some facts that many New Zealanders are unaware of.
New Zealand was isolated from any other landmass for approximately 83 million years.
Much of New Zealand's flora and fauna has evolved into one of the highest levels of endemism (uniqueness - found naturally in one place) in the world.
The most extraordinary evolutionary bent was the lack of mammals. Apart from three species of bat, New Zealand became a land of birds. Our bird species evolved over millions of years, to fill niches which mammals would have filled in other continents. As eminent American biologist, Jared Diamond said: "New Zealand is the closest we can come to studying evolution on another planet."
New Zealand was the last great landmass on earth to receive human habitation. Thus it was, until approximately 700 years ago, that New Zealand remained in complete isolation from the rest of the world. In geological terms, this is just a blink of an eye.
The first human arrivals were the Polynesians, flowing out from what is thought to be the over-crowded Pacific Islands to the north. With these first New Zealanders came the first predatory mammals to inhabit this unique land of birds - a rat (kiore) and a dog (kuri). What was found was a fauna which had evolved without mammalian predation, and had no defence against mammals, including man. Very soon, in ecological terms, many of our land birds became extinct because of their defencelessness - 38 species, with a further 19 species since European arrival from the mid-1800s.
With the Europeans came the biggest threats to our native flora and fauna: the possum, stoat and rat.
Both early Maori and Europeans caused major habitat loss, over 75 per cent, through the burning and logging of our great forests. We have the dubious "honour", by international ecologists, of having destroyed more of our native biota than any other country, by so few people, in such a short time.
Fortunately we still have some of these weird and wonderful birds remaining today - pre-historic birds in historic times. But many of these unique birds are under threat and on the brink of extinction.
We have had a heavy masting of our beech forests. This is a natural event which occurs every five plus years, driven by weather conditions.
The trees flower profusely, and come autumn there is an abundance of seed-fall. This would have been a wonderful "time of plenty" for our native birds - a time of exploding numbers over the breeding season because of all the abundance of food.
Unfortunately, in the changed world of our native forests, where birds are being usurped by introduced predators, this time of mast also helps rodent numbers to explode. Normally in winter their numbers drop right down due to cold and lack of food, but with seed abundance to feed on, their numbers keep exploding over these usually dormant breeding months. Come spring when the seeds start to germinate, the rodent numbers will have exploded exponentially. With no further seed available, they attack the birds.
Left unchecked, the bird population is decimated, and is in further danger of annihilation when the stoats breed in early summer, helped by the massive food basket provided by an increased rodent population. With the extra food, they breed profusely and can support their maximum capacity of 13 to 15 young. Each female young is impregnated by passing males while it is still in the nest.
Our native birds don't stand a chance.
The health of our forests is continuously being degraded by introduced browsing animals which it evolved without. We had the moa and still just have the takahe. Both browsers, they evolved with their particular floral diet so didn't kill out their particular dietary species. Being birds, their eating habits and digestive systems are quite different to the mammalian browsers we have in our forests today. The giant moa were known to be in small numbers at any one time, not browsing in herds.
The only tool we have to combat these introduced pests - the rat, and stoat as a by-kill - over such vast areas is sodium fluroacetate: 1080. It also kills our other major pest, the possum, which is eating our forests, and birds along the way. The poison is the best, most effective, and cheapest option - it is also safe when used to best practice methods. It is a naturally occurring compound found in some plants in many remnant Gondwana countries, to stop heavy animal browsing. The sodium fluroacetate we use in New Zealand is a synthetic copy, in that it is an identical molecule to the natural molecule, whereas a "man-made" chemical does not occur in nature. Another example of a synthetic copy is diabetics' insulin.
Minister of Conservation Nick Smith is working with our top avian scientists. He understands the importance of this mast event. Beech forests have been having mast events for millions of years, but pest numbers have escalated and snowballed over the past few decades, and without intervention - an aerial drop of 1080 - we are in danger of losing many more species of native birds to extinction.
Today's 1080 applications are a long way from early days when 35 kilograms of toxic carrots were dropped per hectare. It's being refined all the time. Nowadays, when targeting rats, it's 1kg per hectare. Work is going to bring the level down even lower.
Baits are cereal-based and infused with cinnamon and dyed green, both of which deter birds. In modern day operations very few birds, if any, die. With one or two breeding seasons without mammalian predation, our bird numbers soar, far outweighing the possible deaths of a few individual birds.
There has never been a greater time for the need to fight for conservation in New Zealand.
Maryann Ewers and Bill Rooke are the founders of the Friends of Flora conservation project: fof.org.nz.
- The Nelson Mail
Do human recreational values take precedence over the survival of these species? This is the question the public is being asked to make a judgment on.
We and many people like us, who have spent years trapping pests, not as a recreational pursuit but out of a deep felt obligation to try and save our precious native biota, have no hidden agenda.
Deer, pigs, thar, chamois, goats and wallabies are found in accessible places all over New Zealand and on DOC estate, yet an increase to 7 per cent of 1080 use on DOC land has spawned the emergence of a Ban 1080 political party and constant ridicule of our Department of Conservation (DOC), Forest and Bird and other conservation groups.
Here are some facts that many New Zealanders are unaware of.
New Zealand was isolated from any other landmass for approximately 83 million years.
Much of New Zealand's flora and fauna has evolved into one of the highest levels of endemism (uniqueness - found naturally in one place) in the world.
The most extraordinary evolutionary bent was the lack of mammals. Apart from three species of bat, New Zealand became a land of birds. Our bird species evolved over millions of years, to fill niches which mammals would have filled in other continents. As eminent American biologist, Jared Diamond said: "New Zealand is the closest we can come to studying evolution on another planet."
New Zealand was the last great landmass on earth to receive human habitation. Thus it was, until approximately 700 years ago, that New Zealand remained in complete isolation from the rest of the world. In geological terms, this is just a blink of an eye.
The first human arrivals were the Polynesians, flowing out from what is thought to be the over-crowded Pacific Islands to the north. With these first New Zealanders came the first predatory mammals to inhabit this unique land of birds - a rat (kiore) and a dog (kuri). What was found was a fauna which had evolved without mammalian predation, and had no defence against mammals, including man. Very soon, in ecological terms, many of our land birds became extinct because of their defencelessness - 38 species, with a further 19 species since European arrival from the mid-1800s.
With the Europeans came the biggest threats to our native flora and fauna: the possum, stoat and rat.
Both early Maori and Europeans caused major habitat loss, over 75 per cent, through the burning and logging of our great forests. We have the dubious "honour", by international ecologists, of having destroyed more of our native biota than any other country, by so few people, in such a short time.
Fortunately we still have some of these weird and wonderful birds remaining today - pre-historic birds in historic times. But many of these unique birds are under threat and on the brink of extinction.
We have had a heavy masting of our beech forests. This is a natural event which occurs every five plus years, driven by weather conditions.
The trees flower profusely, and come autumn there is an abundance of seed-fall. This would have been a wonderful "time of plenty" for our native birds - a time of exploding numbers over the breeding season because of all the abundance of food.
Unfortunately, in the changed world of our native forests, where birds are being usurped by introduced predators, this time of mast also helps rodent numbers to explode. Normally in winter their numbers drop right down due to cold and lack of food, but with seed abundance to feed on, their numbers keep exploding over these usually dormant breeding months. Come spring when the seeds start to germinate, the rodent numbers will have exploded exponentially. With no further seed available, they attack the birds.
Left unchecked, the bird population is decimated, and is in further danger of annihilation when the stoats breed in early summer, helped by the massive food basket provided by an increased rodent population. With the extra food, they breed profusely and can support their maximum capacity of 13 to 15 young. Each female young is impregnated by passing males while it is still in the nest.
Our native birds don't stand a chance.
The health of our forests is continuously being degraded by introduced browsing animals which it evolved without. We had the moa and still just have the takahe. Both browsers, they evolved with their particular floral diet so didn't kill out their particular dietary species. Being birds, their eating habits and digestive systems are quite different to the mammalian browsers we have in our forests today. The giant moa were known to be in small numbers at any one time, not browsing in herds.
The only tool we have to combat these introduced pests - the rat, and stoat as a by-kill - over such vast areas is sodium fluroacetate: 1080. It also kills our other major pest, the possum, which is eating our forests, and birds along the way. The poison is the best, most effective, and cheapest option - it is also safe when used to best practice methods. It is a naturally occurring compound found in some plants in many remnant Gondwana countries, to stop heavy animal browsing. The sodium fluroacetate we use in New Zealand is a synthetic copy, in that it is an identical molecule to the natural molecule, whereas a "man-made" chemical does not occur in nature. Another example of a synthetic copy is diabetics' insulin.
Minister of Conservation Nick Smith is working with our top avian scientists. He understands the importance of this mast event. Beech forests have been having mast events for millions of years, but pest numbers have escalated and snowballed over the past few decades, and without intervention - an aerial drop of 1080 - we are in danger of losing many more species of native birds to extinction.
Today's 1080 applications are a long way from early days when 35 kilograms of toxic carrots were dropped per hectare. It's being refined all the time. Nowadays, when targeting rats, it's 1kg per hectare. Work is going to bring the level down even lower.
Baits are cereal-based and infused with cinnamon and dyed green, both of which deter birds. In modern day operations very few birds, if any, die. With one or two breeding seasons without mammalian predation, our bird numbers soar, far outweighing the possible deaths of a few individual birds.
There has never been a greater time for the need to fight for conservation in New Zealand.
Maryann Ewers and Bill Rooke are the founders of the Friends of Flora conservation project: fof.org.nz.
- The Nelson Mail
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