1080

Just a passing thought on the debate about the use of 1080. I've heard a lot of people on variou media pronounce that 1080 'hasn't worked' because we still have possums, rats, stoats and so on and they are still eating native birds and animals. Peter Dunne is one, and he really should know better:

However, Dunne said 1080 had been used in New Zealand since the 1950s yet native bird populations remained in serious decline with predatory pests still the major culprits.

"Most people recognise that after 50-odd years of fighting a losing battle it's probably time to rethink your strategy, however not according to the proponents of 1080." (1)

Surely, some one like Peter Dunne doesn't need to have it spelled out to him, that rats and other predatory vermin breed at colossal rates, and it is probably impossible to entirely eradicate them from any area larger than small, isolated islands? That we haven't managed to wipe out the rats and the stoats is beside the point - no strategy exists that will completely eliminate them from the main islands of New Zealand. It's impossible. It's a containment strategy, and there isn't a realistic alternative.

Dunne and the dittoheads who say because 1080 hasn't achieved complete eradication, it isn't working at all, are missing the point. Possibly deliberately.

1 - "1080 report 'kick in the guts' - Dunne," by Kiran Chug and Danya Levy. Published in the Dominion post, reproiduced on stuff, 8th of June, 2011. (http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/5111974/1080-report-kick-in-the-guts-Dunne)