16.5 tonnes of toxic brodifacoum bait will be dropped across Shakespeare Park, on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, in the coming months.
Steve and I have been requested by locals from the area to hold a talk, and screen our documentary, Poisoning Paradise.
In a recent study -
Environmental fate and residual persistence of brodifacoum in wildlife ... it is stated...
"Research over the last 10 years indicates that the contamination of non-target wildlife
by the anticoagulant rodenticide brodifacoum is likely to be widespread and mediated
through a wider range of environmental transfer pathways than are currently described,
e.g. invertebrates as vectors of residues."
"Despite New Zealand field research in the 1990s that demonstrated secondary mortality
in some non-target species, and the occurrence of residual brodifacoum in a range of
wildlife, there has been little ongoing monitoring or investigation of the longer-term
implications of the continued field use of brodifacoum for possum and rodent control."
The study was investigating brofiacoum poison used in
bait stations in the Hawkes Bay.
The Shakespeare drop is an
aerial drop involving 16.5 tonnes of poisonous bait,
in a fenced off area on the end the the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, in north Auckland.
Shakespeare Park is an area of around 550 hectares, and a predator-proof fence currently under construction, will be completed sometime next month.
The issue is - why is this pest eradication project, in a built-up part of Auckland, being undertaken using aerially applied brodifacoum poison?
Ulva Island (near Stewart Island) is 1075 hectares, and more remote. It was declared pest free in 1997, and more pertinent, it was eradicated by ground controlled methods, not aerially applied poisons. If it can be done down there, why not up in the popular, accessible, Shakespeare Park?
The meeting and film night will be held on
Thursday the
26th of
May, at the
Manly Methodist Hall,
945 Whangaparaoa Rd, Manly. Kick off, 7pm.
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