The Green Room
Have a look at these two great YouTube videos to see how pest control can benefit thr native birds out in our forests.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zPxJIjkGGQ "Pest Control helps Kaka"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGlliDBnsmk "Otira - a healthy forest with great birds"
The message contained in the two links is about a couple of YouTube clips that have just been put up by Ian Gill journalist of DOC West Coast as a result of some research being done by a Otago University student.
This is excellent - about time we started seeing the true benefits of pest control in a format like this. I hope everyone is watching these clips and forwarding them to friends.
Although it is great to rid the forrests of these pesky possums ,there is never any excuse for poisoning the enviromnt en masse and polluting the planet.
its on a par with being a natzi but obeying orders .
anyone who gets there hands dirty with 1080 will in years to come be very very sorry .
Ruby I suspect you didn't even look at those great videos featuring Gerry.
We have unleashed predators on this environment that are much more damaging and pervasive than 1080.
Yes and the correct spelling is "Nazi" and even then it is a wildly disproportionate term to use to describe something you disagree with, not to mention highly offensive to the memory of millions who were killed in the Holocaust. I read somewhere that as soon as you bring out the "N" word to attack those you disagree with you have lost the argument. Sigh, such is the refuge of those who are unwilling to debate on the basis of logical argument and scientific evidence! Sorry to get into a bit of a rant myself, but sometimes it can get frustrating to debate important issues with people who insist on lowering discussion to this level.
yes i have watched gerrys videos and he seems a really nice guy.but he refers to pest control of the pests fine then he moves on to aerial poisoning dropping he doesent touch the fact of all the damage that is doing to a green enviroment there is no way that sort of thing can be classed as green in any way and on the campells video is proven to poison birds and other wildlife as well as gawd knows what building up in the enviroment and washing out into the oceans ,i know its a lot cheaper but poison is poison .
and i have been to both of the parks in the other vid havent seen any kaka yet though a great view from that bridge at the viewpoint .
apogies for any spellin mistakes
BIRD OBSERVATIONS BEFORE AND AFTER AN EXTENSIVE 1080 OPERATION
Two weeks ago, On 2-3 June, 11,000 hectares of the "Abbey Rocks Block" all around where I live was treated with aerial 1080 in a precise operation by DOC and their contractors. It took place over a period of about 3 hours on the afternoon of 2 June and about 6 hours of 3 June using 6 helicopters.
The weather was perfect. The block is an amazing sweep of wilderness lowland forest between the Paringa and Moeraki Rivers, Highway6/Alpine Fault line and includes about 20km of coastline.
This is one of the NZ strongholds for Fiordland Crested penguin, kaka, parakeet, scarlet mistletoe, southern rata and huge tree fuchsia that are found throughout the forest. It is incredibly difficult to access on foot. The coastal forest in particular is a tangled maze of supplejack and kie kie. On 1 June my son and I walked 15 km north to the heart of the block, Abbey Rocks and at times when we climbed over coastal cliffs we were crawling to get through the kie kie and supplejack.
It is extraordinarily difficult to walk through much of this country let alone do ground based pest control and where ground methods were tried they failed.
The whole block has been treated by DOC with aerial 1080 every 3-4 years for the last 15 years.
Since the 1080 treatment in early June, we have been keeping a careful log of the birds that we have seen every day in our corner of the block just to be able to record what is here and see if there are any obvious changes. We walk a 1km long bush track for these observations as well as observe around where we live.
Kea we have heard and seen every single day before and since 2 June. They are incredibly active, particularly at night and dawn and dusk. They are flying all around the forest margin and travelling long distances in groups of up to 8 birds. Their numbers are as abundant 2 weeks after the pest control operation as they were before.Their major food source at the moment are masses of kahikatea fruits.
Kaka we are seeing or hearing about every day but they are not as common as kea before o after the operation. On checking our yearly nature logs, their numbers always build up here in spring and peak when the mistletoe is in flower in Nov-Dec.
We are seeing falcon every day. Yesterday my son saw two attacking a harrier hawk and I saw the same thing on 6 June. Kereru pigeon are abundant and are feeding on miro fruits and coprosma leaves. There are flocks of silvereyes numbering in their hundreds all around us. There are also lots of blackbirds.
The insect eating birds remain common particularly fantail, both pied and black including a black that has lost its tail. They are chasing insects around the lake/river edge. Grey warbler remain widespread. I haven't seen/heard any brown creeper this month or in May. Tomtit are present in low numbers. We have never had robins here. Tomtit have not been common around here either before or after the operation perhaps because it is the coldest time of the year in this valley floor podocarp-beech forest. There are large numbers of bellbird and tui with a strong dawn chorus every morning (and evening).
Every night we are hearing morepork all across the valley. Their numbers seem the same before and after the 1080 operation. 1080 critics always suggest that morepork and falcon will be the first to disappear because they are predators. Both species have been abundant here both before and after the 1080 operation.
My son is seeing and hearing fernbird every evening when he is trout fishing here. They are in the lakeside rushes, flax and manuka and are incredibly tame. I do wonder if their tameness is a result of low predator numbers although they are always a curious bird.
In summary we are recording every day a good abundance of birds here now two weeks after the 1080 operation. These birds include many kea, a bird about which there has been some concern after some kea deaths at Fox Glacier (90km north of us) following an AHB 1080 operation. Those Fox Glacier kea may have been birds accustomed to taking tourist handouts and more prone to nibble on baits dropped before them. The kea here are never fed and it is another good reason why we need to keep discouraging tourists from feeding kea.
The bird notes described above aren't scientific. They are however a systematic attempt to record what birds were obvious in this type of forest before and after a large scale pest control operation.
A friend who has been helping here for the whole last week following the 1080 operation commented on the keas up to mischief every night all around the room he and his wife were staying in. They were attacking the doormats and it was often difficult to sleep! He has been a prominent critic of 1080.
I think it is very important to listen to the criticism of aerial 1080 pest control over rugged country and address those concerns where they can be shown to be scientifically valid. It is also important to consider what practical alternatives there are to aerial 1080 and whether these can actually be conducted or are just impractical dreaming. It is important to test the results of the 1080 operations using repeatable science. We need to be reassured it isn't affecting the water and nearly 1000 tests show that it isn't affecting the water. We need to be shown that there is a major recovery in native plants and birds and reading the scientific papers and from personal observations I believe this has now been demonstrated beyond any contention.
But we still need to keep monitoring and working on new problems that may arise. For example we need to test new problems that are identified such as the kea issue to see whether it is valid. Keeping an open mind is vital to make sure that we are as responsible as possible in supporting this as the most effective form of pest control. Eventually we'd all like there to be an easier way but we know that will take time!
Ultimately however we have to take appropriate action in the most effective way possible rather than just talk about our concerns. The birds and vulnerable trees can't wait while we remain indecisive and do nothing. We know that with no pest control and uncontrolled rat, stoat and possum populations we will lose all those special birds and vulnerable plants that make NZ special.
Thanks DOC.
This is a genuine question. I don't want to argue; I just want to try and understand the "anti-1080" sentiment. I understand and accept the concerns about adverse effects of poisons on the environment, especially re by-catch. But is what is being said that because the only way we know how to kill pests large-scale and big-time is through aerial poisoning operations, then we shouldn't even consider this option, and let the pests run rampant until such time as we do have a 'safe' way of dealing to them? Even if this means the collapse of forest ecosystems for example, and the destruction of much native birdlife?
Or is it OK to use aerial 1080 poisoning, as long as we admit and shout from the rooftops that it is not the most environmentalyy-benign way of managing pests? I sort of thought that was what F&B was doing anyway; saying "hey, this isn't the be-all and end-all, but until something better comes along, then we'd rather destroy pests than have them destroy our forests and native animals and plants".
I have been told by some that there is no 'logical' or 'rational' way to argue with hardened "anti-1080 lobbyists", but I thought that rather cynical, so please convince me they're wrong.
very nice interesting and well informed response there gerry you are certainly doing a very good job there .
nice to here from someone directly in the front line ,
I was in a forrest up lake ohau last week and it was totally devoid of signs of possums the trappers had been there and we found there traps etc obviously from there traps there was no possums left as non of the baits had been touched etc or the traps sprung for a long time , im no expert but they had done a good job without poisoning the enviroment well done to them .
as well there was not loads of dead decaying carcasses about as we have seen before and the scrub/ bush was almost impenatrable .
being a green family we can apcept that.
although we dont apcept animal creulty and mass poisoning a lot of differnt studies show that they are obviosly having a bad effect on the enviroment why else would it be banned in every other country including america i just cant put poisoning on such a scale or any indiscriminate way as ethical or green no excuse for lowering ones values not the way they are doin it now .
i personally am not going to troll through the tinternet or books etc to put up statistics for or against plenty of other people doing that and i dont class this as my specialist subject we all know statistics can prove anything the other side have plenty to prove the opposite .
what remains a fact is that POISONS are not akin in any way to being green and there is a line being crossed between green humane ethical and well something else that will come back to haunt nz green image
It was Jared Diamond (before he was world famous) that said...New Zealand is as close as we will get to studying life on another planet. If you understand this, you will understand why what is done, or not done, overseas in regards to 1080 has no relevance to what we do here.
I am a proud green, with a second edition of Silent Spring on my bookshelf, but I also had the misfortune of growing up in the empty shells of landscape, the empty forests and grasslands of the eastern south island. Have you been to an unmodified predator free island Ruby? Its tragic what we have done. 1080 at the moment is a necessary evil...and as for animal cruelty, check this out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATXFCryzvgU
..mice eating albatross...admittedly not NZ, but could it happen here?
hey you cannot be a true green if you belive in poisoning the planet.
the excuses you put up that of quoting a book you read and being to a predator free island to see what its like do not in any way make up for poisoning the planet .
in the future the only thing nz will be famous for is being a poisoners paradise a lot of countrys have rid remote islands of pests ,so as the bird life can breed as it allways did this as we all know is a great thing and easily sustanable.
but i am sure jared diamond or any one else will ever convince me even remoteley than there is a reason justifying mass poisoning from the air of waterways forrests birds and anything else in there and these poisons are banned in other unique countrys not cause they are inferior to nz but because they relise the obvious repercussions i wont even use poisons on the path like all the neighbours but they dont care about there enviroment only there own self and there own little world .
are you saying you dont care about the planet or just dont care as long as your back yard aint got weeds in.
i do belive we can all justify any crime against the planet for the greater good but there is a line .
And mass poisoning on such a scale is crossing that line well and truly and i personally will never lose sight of the bottom line of conserving for the future .
poison poisons forever there is no safe poisons pretty simple really think about it .
the issue aint ridding bird colonies of pests its do we poison the planet as well any one can throw poison down all over the place .
or do we do it intelligently humanely and safe as is done in some forrests in nz and elsewhere and have our morals and ethics intact.
like i said afore there is so much conflictin evidence and books that push there own agenda i wouldnt waste my time quoting any of them its a matter of being a true green or selling us down the river .
would you trow poisons all over your veggie patch
Hey Ruby,
Just for the record, you know that 1080 is the synthesised version (because its cheaper to produce) of EXACTLY THE SAME CHEMICAL produced by trees all over Australia, South America and Africa - evolved to deter browsing mammals eh?
So, do you consider what a tree produces as a poison? because that's what we're talking about here.
The line is very simple. OUR (Aotearoa's) native wildlife evolved with no native mammals (except for two species of bat), therefore no predatory mammals - which once THEY got to NZ, had a field day eating every bird, reptile and insect in sight.
Is that OK? to allow the genocide of our native wildlife, because you don't like the 'sound' of 1080 because its a 'poison', even though that very same 'poison' is what is found in trees in their native habitat throughout the Southern Hemisphere?
I feel for you, and i think you come from a good place - but if you really care about our native wildlife, then you need to think HARD. Our native wildlife cannot stand up against the onslaught of introduced mammals - check these videos out - just as a few examples of what is happening in every forest, every night throughout the country.
http://www.predatortraps.com/facts_videos.htm
Please be assured that all people who work in conservation wouldn't do this if it would harm the things that they are passionate about. Why would they - there's no money in it!
In areas of difficult terrain - not sure how much time you have spent deep in the Te Ureweras or five days walk into Fiordland - trapping does not suffice - which is when 1080 is used.
New Zealand uses a lot (so does Australia) , but we use a lot because we have no native mammal predators, so we are uniquely placed to use it.
It's not the be-all and end-all, nobody thinks that, but would you prefer that nothing was done - and this continued every day in every patch of bush in the country? I sense you really love the wildlife in NZ, so you wouldn't wish this on any native bird.
Kiwikilled.jpg (12.5 KB, 2 downloads) 2 years old oh and this represents the nightly battle our wildlife faces....
possumandrat.jpg (24.2 KB, 2 downloads) 2 years old i do admit its horrible to see the kiwi or any other bird like that. and the nightly battle they face from all the other predators is terrible.
But 1080 a naturally occuring chemical ha your having a laugh,
you cant just make things up like that the nazis invented it to kill people then the yanks reinvented it and started using it first its a POIson like any other man made POISON even doc admit that and the dangers of handling it .
most peole on here in nz no the pros and cons of it and all agree the pest problem has to be tackled or else its oblivon on the mainland for flightless birds and others .
i am just debating the ethical question of throwing poison about like that and then proposing to be green its either one or the other
So should we get rid of all of our Ngaio and Tutu - both trees that have killed dogs etc - because they are poisonous.
Also, how can we call ourselves green if we are allowing our native wildlife to slide towards extinction and be killed on their nests every single night?
I understand your concerns. but this is a value judgement. And I, like many others, value the native wildlife the most.
ratfantail.jpg (48 KB, 0 downloads) 2 years old if we did that every dangerous animal or fish or plant would go on that premise thats a bit silly as there wouldnt be much left.
no one is advocating doing nothing least of all me ,well maybe some do advoate doing nothing.
but mass poisoing on the scale at the moment is very dangerous and not any way green towards our planet .
you dont need to keep putting pics up of animals killing birds or young etc i know what they do but as a green human i wont condone mass poisoning ever .
there is other ways and methods that are used that wont suit a lazy uncaring person who doesnt care about the planet as a whole.
i am not going to troll the net for pics of 1080 kills etc any one could and probably does we all have to be honest about this poison is POISON and it will all end in tears
Piwakawaka those are brilliant but tragic photos of the birds being killed.
Tonight I showed my son my "too long post" above. He commented that there are actually heaps of tomtits all around us not the few I'd observed (he gets out more often than me!). My son and wife both commented on the dozens of fantails that are flying around the lake outlet and especially under and around the highway bridge.They seem to get shelter and lots more sandflies there. Clearly both these species and all then others we are seeing in abundance described above appear to have been unaffected by the 1080 operation here 2 weeks ago.
1080 is a naturally occuring chemical. Interestingly Australian mistletoes (orange flowers) are poisonous to mammals because of the chemical in them. Our closely related mistletoes (red and yellow flowers) don't have the poisonous chemicals in them because we had no native browsing mammals. Because of this, ours are utterly vulnerable to mammal browsing particularly possums, deer, goats, sheep and cows. They are all now incredibly rare except in South Westland, parts of the high country and D'Urville Island that doesn't have possums.
I like to call the compounds that are debated about above "chemicals" rather than "poisons" or "toxins" which are loaded words. Warfarin and its derivatives were developed at the University of Wisconsin after WW2. (Warfarin stands for Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation) These anti-coagulant chemicals are extraordinarily effective for rat control and are very effective for saving birds that are only very slightly susceptible to their effects because they have a different blood circulation process than mammals. These chemicals are also extraordinarily effective taken as a human blood thinner (Coumadin) and thereby preventing strokes amongst about 1/3rd of the human population over 65 years. Chemical is therefore a better word to describe them than poison or medicine. University of Wisconsin's other great invention was the power of "Botox". It is a highly poisonous natural compound now injected into the faces of about half the TV presenters of the world ...and I'm sure none of faces of the posters on this topic! "Chemical" is again a better description for it than "poison" or "cosmetic"! I'm sure "graceful ageing" is an even better and less painful term than "Chemical" or "Cosmetic"
I'd prefer to accept that both chemical means and physical means of pest control all have their good and bad points and we need to use the most effective tool from our pest control tool kit in the most appropriate place. Ruby describes possum traps at Lake Ohau as a way of controlling possums. When I was 12 I started trapping possums on the Kaikoura Coast. It was one of the most brutal things I have ever had to do and I never want to do it again. My fur trapping teachers and the books all said you killed the possum with a single blow to the head. It didn't work. Some poor possums had to be hit many many times.
The red mistletoe around Lake Ohau is some of the best in NZ only because there has been concerted possum control there. Have the Lake Ohau Station cows and sheep been taken out of the DOC reserve there yet Ruby? When I was last there in 2007 they were wrecking the beech forest,and the lovely kowhais on the lake shore and grazing all the low hanging mistletoes. Possums are not the only pests!
yes gerry the sheep are still there they are off the mountain valleys now due to the weather of course and they are a nibbleing pest but appcetable as they are a buisness that is new zealands backbone ,
the possum traps they use now gerry are deadly and amazing they kill so quick i shoved a stick up and we where amazed at the force they are designed to kill instantly and humanelly ,not like the old traps with no concern for animal creulty.
i dont like to think of any creature being killed for no reason but if they have to be killed or removed i would hope it would be done as humane as possible and the hideous way they die from 1080 poioning is certainly the last on the list for any creature.
just reading about 1080 it is not used like waqrfarin as an anti coagulant and will cause death via heart attack if ingested .
as i said before i dont really want to go assemling all the info but even your own dept doc refer to it as a poison and stick up warning signs saying so with the dealy skull and crossbones signs etc.
all poisons are chemical compounds and giving summat a differnet name dont make it right and even uranium is a naturally occuring compound you wouldnt want either spread on your cornflakes .
I know i said i was nt going to get into the war of vids etc and im not ,but i loked at the clip at least the guy admited he was being funded and that 1080 is getting into the watercourse system and being eaten by other species.
you can find many conflicing views on the effects of any poison chemical or you can put your trust in poisons its a free country .
Me well i am green and that to me means ,green to everything the whole thing like a holistic approach and poisons will never be green.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCMybJoJk90
when i looked at your clip this was one of many conflicting videos a war of videos probably comes down to whos the best at getting and funding there message and spinning.
I dont need to watch any more sick videos of dying dead things to know the potential of poisons for future generations there has been many before that where supposed to be safe and none has been in the end, specially when used so indiscriminately.
I love wild birds but not that much there are better ways safer ways and more humane Greener methods ,and thats what its all about to me .
Hay
Gerry, your posts are never too long! I love to hear what you have to say and only wish we had more great people like yourself living up here in the far north doing good stuff!
These are some pics of dead Pohutukawas along the east coast that possums have killed. When I saw what was happening I got my Cyanide Licence and stared poisoning the possums. I have saved heaps of these awesome trees, but in the scale of things I'm just like a piece of dust in the universe. We need 1080!!
Hundereds of dead Pohutukawas
it is horrible to see a dead tree or a damaged one but there are plenty of enviromently frendly methods to control possums .
We all have to be responsible with poioning the enviroment and uphold the green methods of doing so
Devastating photos kukupa.
Reminds me of the skeleton mountain cedar forests on slopes of Mt Taranaki. We have released biological agents of mass destruction.
Heard an interesting comment on the weekend that apparently NIWA or someone with similar authority and knowledge has found that 1080 occurs naturally in puha also. If so, there's direct evidence that 1080 hasn't seemed to poison in this case the Maori population who've been eating it for generations.
WOW good to see that 1080 sign!
The bush and birds must be thriving there now!
If only we saw more of those signs up north!
Until we do, I'll keep spending my time and my money cyaniding possums and in the scheme of things, making a VERY small difference!
An interesting comment annie ,well fair enough i heard summat similar arsenic occurs naturally in eggs and we is all just doin luvly so lets start takin it orally.
when you guys starting feeding it 1080 to your pets and children then i will know you belive its safe and not a deadly poison but we all no different.
Fine if you guys are happy spreading poison about do it ass long as you dont lie to yourselfs about the effects on birds fish humans an all other animals and the enviroment when it is dropped en masse from the air willy nilly.
The point of putting the pic of the sign 1080, kukupa is to demonstrate docs serious approach to the deadlyness of this poison i did not want to get into a picture argument i could soon troll the net for more pics we all no that ,pics of dead birds killed by 1080 etc etc .
But its not about pictures or propaganda its about the safe use of poisons by intelligent caring green people.
And the aerial bombardment is most definetly not that no matter how many trees the possums murder they can be dealt with safer,healthier greener cleaner and more ethically .
As a bird lover and all things clean and green i belive we should take the moral high ground .
You must log in to post.