Thread: Decades of 1080….before and after

The issue being how rats reproduce from a young age similarly like stoats. For sheer versatility as a hunter the stoat would be hard to beat anywhere in the world. When they can run up sheer rock faces it is a sight to behold. My dogs years ago "killed" a stoat [like in giving it a sizeable munching] It lay knackered on the river bed and we turned around and it was gone.

Originally Posted by No.3

Fark we'll never de-rat NZ. Not with the numbers in urban and urban/rural interface areas...

not to mention..it only takes two to jump ship and we back to scratch again.

Rat populations get a partial knockback after 1080 poison drops but then breed rapidly to far exceed the original population within 18 months. The phenomenon known as rat irruptions.

Originally Posted by Moa Hunter

I have experience gained from working in Canada, a country declared TB free. I used to export CSL ( Australia ) Tuberculin to the USA for skin testing Elk and was involved when domestic Elk in Alberta imported from the US were found to have TB and the infected herds depopulated. From that experience I have a different perspective based on math. A clinical case TB possum will live two weeks, so it has two weeks to infect other possums or cattle. From this it is easy to calculate the probable infection rate factor for a given population density and this is what Ospri does. Unless possums are at a very high density it is obvious that TB cannot be maintained in possums, they die before they spread it. What is ignored is that Cattle are the natural host of Bovine TB and can carry a latent infection for ten years or more before they develop clinical disease and become infectious. During this 'latent carrier' period they do not react to a skin test. ( They do test positive to a BTB test ) A property with latent infections cannot be cleared using the skin test. Depopulation is the only way to clean up a persistently infected herd. Some herds have been 'I 10' status ( infected ten years ) despite annual air drops of 1080. TB is being 'Farmed' and jobs maintained with this slow control rather than elimination.

Wise man, you are. It like British once before award for every cobra caught in India, then Indians started to farm cobra, And zero covid policy in NZ and in China, both for political gain. Once started something, you can `t stop it immediately, like stopping a 60 cars of train. Those big players, person sits behind front...China still run massive PCR test, lockdown, why? Despite coming election, one day, in a city like Akl, can generate 20,000,000 dollars per day to contribute to GDP and those profiteer who has accesses.

Originally Posted by Woody

Rat populations get a partial knockback after 1080 poison drops but then breed rapidly to far exceed the original population within 18 months. The phenomenon known as rat irruptions.

Got a link ?

Not sure if this website still rxists but try googleing rat irruptions. Or www.1080science.co.nz

Originally Posted by sore head stoat

Got a link ?

Yeah there is info out there - I used to have a hardcopy of a paper on it. Quite staggering how resilient the little bastards are, and how responsive they are to population pressures. The phrase "cunning as a rat" didn't happen by accident! The self-management aspect of the species to respond to events outside their species' control is actually quite frightening, if an event causes them to run out of sufficient food they simply eat each other until things level back out...

Originally Posted by Woody

Not sure if this website still rxists but try googleing rat irruptions. Or www.1080science.co.nz

Yip I googled ship rat irruptions and came up with this https://www.doc.govt.nz/globalassets...al/casn318.pdf

I couldnt find anywhere in that paper where it says 1080 can cause ship rat irruptions. What I did find is that they are caused by food supply .

Originally Posted by Mohawk .308

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/...80-poison-drop

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC11...jo-pollard.htm

Im not sure why baited drops with some form of sterility compounds arnt done. Animals wouldn't know they couldnt produce offspring and if there is no ill effect from eating baits, that they notice they keep eating,this encouragres more wary animals its safe. If the cost is high intially it must balance out over time.
Dont know what hb council did but I havent seen a possum on this farm since they did their big eradicaton program. ( bait stations on farm are topped up with poison baits a couple times a year but still no possums)
Truthfully though im glad its worked, I miss going out for a few hours a couple of times a week possum shooting.

I think feral cats are a bigger problem than in the past - that is they have gotten bigger. Cats readily eat possum but they were a little small and light to kill an adult possum. I speculate that cats have selected towards a bigger cat, better matched to possums as a primary food source.
With an unlimited food source in possums ( easy for a cat to catch a possum a night) I expect that we will see more and more of these genetically adapted big cats in the bush to the detriment of Kiwi and Weka, Blue Duck etc

I have only once ever seen a possum eating flesh, but I have seen very high bird populations alongside very high possum numbers. They do bugger the bush and the avian food supply but from observation they seem to be a very minor predator.

after nearly 35 years in the industry I can clear up some of the ideas put foward here 1) a bounty - will never work why a) cannot be specifically targeted to where its needed - lets say you have a block of bush with the last population of a very rare bird - how can paying for a possum shot on a farm or rural road possibly help -70% of bush in NZ receives no money or control -what little money there is is targeted to where its needed- b) to achieve effective control 95% + of possums must be removed -a bounty would only take out less than 10% in any given area and even then that's very optimistic - some Scientists put it as low as 3-4% - the remaining possums will breed faster than the extremely small no a bounty would achieve -a bounty is a complete waste of money and will achieve nothing and DOC know it . Sterility control - not there yet and DOC are not going to aerially sow a sterile bait even if we had it when they can sow 1080 and kill possums end of story - we may see a change in that but there is very little money going into research - no we are stuck with 1080 for now - all we can do is keep them honest - deer repellant in all areas of popular recreational hunting -no 1080 near water supplys

Problem with the water supplies one is every area is a water supply catchment in NZ, and the steeper the country the further out the baits have to be. Bounty isn't a full solution but the biggest objection is the lack of statistics, accountability and the politics of it (money removed from the pockets of a small number of individuals and spread out at a lesser amount to a larger number of people). We have to accept that this stopped being about best outcomes for the environment a long time ago.

Pest control in NZ is NOT JUST POSSUM. This is the biggest issue with 1080 - some of the biggest bird predators are not targetted by poison drops and until we get onto that aspect of it we just are not going to get to predator free anything.

Originally Posted by sore head stoat

Yip I googled ship rat irruptions and came up with this https://www.doc.govt.nz/globalassets...al/casn318.pdf

I couldnt find anywhere in that paper where it says 1080 can cause ship rat irruptions. What I did find is that they are caused by food supply .

In other words aerially poisoning enhances rats food supply. Very clever eh. (Then they breed to higher numbers than pre poison drop ay

Originally Posted by kruza

Im not sure why baited drops with some form of sterility compounds arnt done. Animals wouldn't know they couldnt produce offspring and if there is no ill effect from eating baits, that they notice they keep eating,this encouragres more wary animals its safe. If the cost is high intially it must balance out over time.

Thats gene editing or modification and the Greens don't like that. Plus there are concerns that the edited genes could infect other populations, like possums in Australia and mustelids in Nothern Hemisphere. Personally, I couldn't give 2 shits what the Greens think, nor do I care about other countries.

It would make Predator 2050 into Predator 2035.\