I would like to know if tunnel track counts were done ? what is that data, spare me the "we counted the birds singing and they are all there" stuff unless you want to be lumped in with the dodgy anti 1080 science. If you kill rats then you should look for rats afterward. Rats have been around a long time there are records of rats swarming into miners camps in the Shotover and eating everything literally, 100 years ago they did not turn up in the hills 10 years ago.
Rats and mice have only 2 population states refuge and explosion. It is important to recognise and study that cycle that before making sweeping claims that 1080 will work and is integrated, unless you are resigned to dropping 1080 every few years everywhere.
1080 is not doing very well down here it was dropped in ARK Dart/Caples in 2005 and again in 2009 because the rats and mice were back, 1080 drops bought 4 years, barely. Having to do the job again and again and again is not what I call a success. How many KM2 of 1080 do we aerial drop a year ?
This taken from docs website.
Where does DOC use 1080?
DOC does around 560,000 ha of pest control annually. Most of this is ground based (trapping and poisoning). 150,000 ha is aerial 1080, used in challenging country where the other options are not cost effective. DOC’s aerial 1080 operations cover less than two per cent of public conservation land.
When correctly applied, 1080 is very effective. One aerial application can kill 98% of possums and more than 90% of rats in the targeted area. These successful knock-down rates provide vulnerable native birds with a crucial breeding window to raise chicks through to fledging, increasing their survival rate.
end of info
Only killing 90% of your rats and mice is a failure, they bounce back as quickly as the birds once beech mast kicks in. That 90% was going to die of starvation anyway, I have had the little sods eat into my pack on the ground in broad daylight they are that hungry in explosion state.
It just does not stack up 710 km2 poisoned a year covering 2% of PCL, to cover the whole PCL by rotation would take 50 years.
What we have now is high value areas protected by repeated 1080 and everything else is left to itself.
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