Why we must stop flogging the 1080 horse 

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Photo: Fish & Game

I hate this topic with a passion. Mostly because I’m tired of all the misinformed screeching, frothing emotive bullshit coming out of the orifices of many, not all, but many of the anti 1080 brigade, and at times the pro 1080 advocates as well.

The issue is divisive, especially on social media and forums and more often than not results in a screaming contest that is likened to playing chess with a pigeon: it knocks all the pieces over, shits all over the board then struts around like it won anyway. The likes of the depressing deer carcass cuddling duo the Graf brothers have dedicated wasted many year on their crusade to ban 1080, or Sodium fluoroacetate. Emotionally charged arguments and cherry picked ‘scientific evidence’ from both sides has ensured the certainty that the debate will rage on for the foreseeable future as it goes around in circles with the same rhetoric being regurgitated over and over.

1080 as it currently stands, is our only effective (both in terms of cost, ease of distribution) method control that we have until a more effective tool is developed. It is not an intended effort to eradicate, that is unrealistic and is often used as a straw man argument against 1080 as being ineffective. The argument over trapping has been done to death, it is expensive and logistically impossible on the same scale as the terrain that aerial 1080 application can cover. One of the Graf boys even suggested to me years ago in the comments of one of their Youtube videos that if we left possums alone they would reach their own natural balance and wouldn’t need to be poisoned. One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to spot the flaws in that stance, and there is no science to back up that this would be achieved without the destruction of many of our native flora and fauna first….which is what I thought we were trying to avoid?

The current National Government has set an ambitious, perhaps even impossible target to be pest free by the year 2050. This will not happen with 1080…for any species…or with any other method for that matter unless research into the viability of biological control methods that disappeared off the radar are once again put back on the table, and we change our views on genetic engineering and accept that we need to move into modern times and use biology and science to solve the problem, not indiscriminate toxins.

We are far better served uniting to drive the agenda for a solution, rather than drowning it out with the noise of the anti 1080 screeching movement. It’s tired, it’s boring, and nobody is listening except for like minded people. That’s the part that most don’t seem to understand.

Finding a viable alternative will effectively make 1080 redundant, making the drive to ban 1080 pointless but most importantly, unnecessary.

More ban 1080 petitions have been circulated in the past than I’ve had haircuts, and all they do is give the signatories a false perception they’ve had their say or made a difference.

As someone I saw mentioned earlier in the week:  “starting a change.org petition to get something banned is akin to masturbating to get a baby, neither produce a result.”

  • Your article

    • Travdog

      Reinforcing and missing all of my points all at the same time, blinkered reading.

      “The Graf brothers are right, Nature will sort itself out. As it always does.”

      That is a rather disturbing mentality for anyone that cares about the conservation of our own native species and saving them from extinction.

      It is also disturbing that people would sooner advocate leaving our native birds and plants at the whim of introduced predators to “sort themselves out.”

      Given your comment “Let 1080 be dropped everywhere, knowing it won’t work.” suggests you didn’t read the entire post, or at least take it on board.

      • I worked for both the Forest Service and the DoC on 1080 operations. Saw first hand the cruelty being dished out. I have lived most of life in the back country and have come to see things beyond the DoC world of destruction. You cannot commit such atrocities and expect anything good to come from it.
        The photos you have used were arranged by a wildlife centre near Wellington. Any one who uses them is more into creating propaganda than actually making any valid points. Even if they were genuine they portray nothing of relevance.
        I suggest you look into the new research around so-called introduced or invasive species. Not NZ research of course because of the huge bias and ignorance, but worldwide a new understanding is emerging, that gets closer to explaining how things actually work.
        Right now NZ is in a place of darkness when it comes to how we relate to the natural world.
        “Look deep into nature and you will understand everything better”
        Einstein.

        • admin

          The photo source is irrelevant, they are representative of reality, unless you’re suggesting to me that it doesn’t occur in the wild? You are doing your best to downplay the effects of predation and some mutterings and some other hippie man of the earth nonsense to support your argument against 1080. Come up with a solution, not your own “propaganda”. Do some reading up about biological controls and GM, you might better understand some alternatives yourself, “Einstein” 😉

        • Travdog

          The photo source is irrelevant, they are representative of reality, unless you’re suggesting to me that it doesn’t occur in the wild? You are doing your best to downplay the effects of predation and some mutterings and some other hippie man of the earth nonsense to support your argument against 1080. Come up with a solution, not your own “propaganda”;. Do some reading up about biological controls and GM, you might better understand some alternatives yourself, “Einstein” 😉

          • It’s easy to kill, harder to live.
            “Einstein”??..you would do well to study more of his quotes. Problems? Solutions? Welcome to the world of the dollar. Profits to be made . I was there, in that space, for years. I last made financial profit from possums in January 2010 when fur was briefly $145/kg.
            Even then I had already discarded the view you now have.Kill pests!! ( Don’t worry, it’s the prevalent one. You are safely in the majority.)
            It’s actually based on ignorance. Ignorance that we all have to a greater or lesser degree.
            People want possums dead!! Its the peculiar violent attitude to life, we have. It’s hard to figure why.
            The possum, an animal most know nothing about. Do you? What’s the gestation period of a possum? How many claws and toes do they have? What is their preferred foods? What are they eating right now in very early spring? What do they give to the forest?
            Can’t answer? Any? The photos tell you nothing.
            My suggestion: become a hippy like Einstein. Start looking at nature. Try and observe without judgement. Not easy. Then, if you still feel like killing, go do it. “Save” the planet as we all one day will, save the planet from ourselves.

          • Neville Du Fall

            Travdog, those contrived photo’s are very definitely not representative of reality and this just goes to show your ignorance of this topic. Ask yourself “why contrived if this is the normal?”
            You would do well to heed the counsel of Andy Blick, he has walked the talk for a great many years, from both sides of the fence.

  • Tracy R

    The author promotes the myth “1080 as it currently stands, is our only effective (both in terms of cost, ease of distribution) method control that we have until a more effective tool is developed” Yet both doc & ahb in a steering group meeting discuss NOT producing evidence they gathered to the erma review(which was a white wash designed to support the 1080 poison industry) that trapping was more effective, less cost & 1000 times more selctive. They chose to do this in effort to protect the income etc generated by the poison industry. The writer of this article is simply attempting to fien balance when in actual fact is producing propaganda to keep the millions of dollars rolling in. !080 poison is the biggest & longest running fraud everr perpetuated on the New Zr=ealand tax payer. The only reason we have it is shear disgusting g=reed & is the foremost killer of the birds the proponents pretend to protect.

  • Pete Watson

    Hard to understand where this author is coming from. I like his use of the photos we all know are not real in nature. I also like Andy Blicks comments. When you have lived in the realm and been a human destroying nature for what purpose you should as I did come to a point when you question yourself and ask yourself why?? When you start to study and read unbiased data you realise the animals are not the problem. HUMANS are!! Why we believe we can alter nature is beyond me. We are not nor ever will be god. Sit back enjoy the ride, enjoy nature around you, use what you need to survive as all nature does. But do not destroy what you have no understanding of. MY major concern with 1080 as with Glyphosate in round up, is they are accumulative poisons. Once in your metabolism they stay in. Why do we always ask what is the cause of soaring illness and cancers. It is the likes of these two toxins that we use in unbelievable proportions that enters the food chain. These and many many others, come on humans we are destroying ourselves,
    dont bring nature down with us

  • Travdog

    Rattling the possum cages by the looks, but here’s a good article: http://www.biologicalheritage.nz/programmes/risks/hi-tec-solutions/control-agents

    • Any article that starts: “controlling possums is a national priority” loses me straightaway.It’s all pumped up BS. Just a few years ago I had a whole forest to trap because no one even gave possums a second thought. Now theres fortunes to be made in laboratories. Possum numbers are very low over huge areas of the country, and they are not fast breeders.
      What’s contemplated is absolutely insane. Unproven, untested manipulation of any animal at a genetic level is madness.