OUR situation
We are all, by now, aware of the 122 tons of Brodifacoum poison that the Department of Conservation dropped across New Zealand's precious Rangitoto and Motutapu islands, claiming to protect wildlife (using a substance that persists in the environment, that kills animals, birds and fish life, by causing them to bleed to death, through internal haemorrhaging, over a period of up to 2 weeks.) Inhumane? You bet!
TV3 interviewed DoC over the poisoning, which can be viewed by clicking on this link
http://www.3news.co.nz/Questions-surround-DOC-poison-dumps/tabid/367/articleID/119097/cat/41/Default.aspx
Our new documentary Poisoning Paradise, includes pages of native birds (released under the Official Information Act) that have been killed by this poison, in DoC aerial operations on offshore islands - these birds include Kiwi, Takahe, Robins, Ruru, Kaka, Kakariki, and many more.
A disgrace? You bet!
THE LINK
But the most interesting part of this story is the information that is now coming through from Hawaii.
Their Department of Land and Natural Resource (a very similar name to our own bureaucracy - DoC) dropped Rat poison, similar to the one used on our islands, across their Ni'ihau, Lehua, Lihue, & Kauai island's. Coincidentally, their islands suffered massive fish poisonings following the drops. Check out these links...
http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20090315_Catastrophic_fish_kill_still_scars_Niihau_diet.html
http://www.kauaiworld.com/articles/2009/02/19/news/kauai_news/doc499d2a235dff8405003046.txt
http://www.kauaiworld.com/articles/2009/06/04/news/kauai_news/doc4a2740c5c17f8004726514.txt
A couple of sentences from the reports..."Ni'ihau residents still are not eating fish months after thousands of dead fish washed ashore. The dead fish appeared in mid-January shortly after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service dumped rat poison on nearby Lehua island on behalf of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources."
Ring any bells???
Resident Keith Robinson stated that there are reportedly about a dozen Monk Seals who used to regularly visit the island and have recently "gone missing" while others appear "extremely sick."
Ring any bells???
Bruce Robinson says..."It's kind of strange that this is the first time this has happened in a century."
Ring any bells???
Robinson goes on to say..."There appears to be some information that others have sampled that they did find residue at very low level, which makes you wonder. It doesn't necessarily mean the smoking gun."
As "authorities" test samples, community members continue to speculate on the cause of a massive fish kill reported earlier this month on Ni'ihau and the death days later of a young humpback whale on Kaua'i.
Some residents suspect a recent federally administered rodenticide application on the uninhabited island of Lehua may be linked to the dead fish that have washed ashore there and on the nearby Forbidden Island.
Dr Thierry Work, with the National Wildlife Health Centre, found that there were "no visible lesions" and "no evidence of external or internal bleeding."
Sound familiar???
Checkout the TV3 interview again, above.
And so we are left with the suspicion that 'algal blooms' appear anywhere government departments aerially apply lethal poisons across offshore land masses - apparently killing all sorts of wildlife...including "sea slugs". Wow folks, they really do take us for a bunch of idiots!
As Einstein once said ......"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth!"
and one more from an infamous character...
"How fortunate it is for the Government, that the people don't think!"
That was Hitler, by the way.
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Thanks for doing something to counteract the plethora of PR hype and misinformation that's surrounding this issue.
ReplyDeleteI find it insulting that the NZ public is being taken for fools, no one in their right mind believes for one moment that some novel algal toxin is responsible for all these deaths that coincidentally just happened to have started when a few tonnes of rat poison were dropped in the vicinity.
1080 bait is made by the NZ government's State Owned Enterprise - "Animal Control Products" and the board of directors is appointed by the NZ Minister of Agriculture, who shares the shareholding with the NZ Minister of Finance.
ACP relies on 1080 for 60% of its income.
ACP also make "Pestoff" - the Brodifacoum bait dropped all over Rangitoto : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Control_Products_Limited
If 1080 was so "safe" and such an effective and efficient product why is Connovation being sponsored to replace it with PAPP/'Catnap' and have already conducted very successful field trials on PAPP in Waitutu?
Even if PAPP gets the go ahead there's a buffer stock of four years supply of 1080 that ACP are required to hold. Which equates to quite a significant capital investment. One can appreciate why the NZ government wouldn't want to see the bottom drop out of the 1080 market any time soon.
My father fought a war (world War 11) to
ReplyDeleteensure that sick, deluded lunatics like those in
charge of our Crown lands would never reign
again. He would turn in his grave if he saw
what was happening to this country today.
I cannot believe the whitewash that DOC continue to feed the public. And to think the public actually buy it illustrates the lack of education and awareness on the issue(s)
ReplyDeleteIt scares me to think that an organisation who call themselves a "conservation" department, avoid answering the hard questions about their malpractices and what risks these poisons (brodificoum, 1080 etc) may impose to the wider public who harvest wildfoods from public areas (whether marine or terrestrial).
This wishwash has to stop - it is ridiculous. I'm pleased that these issues are being raised more and more in the public domain - but the media heavyweights need to start asking the hard questions and dig a bit deeper!!