Thread: Deer and 1080 puzzle

A friend of mine who formerly worked for DOC told me that he'd seen a video of a possum eating a combination of bait mixed with 1080 pellets.

The possum was sorting through pawfuls of mixed bait, and dropping the 1080 on the ground.

" Mmm Yummy
-Nope, disgusting.
- Ooh yum.
- Nope.
- Nope
- Ooh yummy.
- Didn't they put any Turkish delight in this mix?"

I thought they were not meant to target deer with 1080. Also, were they not starting to put deer repellent in?

It's a cruel death, and users of 1080 for pest control rely on a special exemption in the animal cruelty act to avoid getting charged with causing deliberate animal suffering.

Originally Posted by Cordite

I thought they were not meant to target deer with 1080. Also, were they not starting to put deer repellent in?

It's a cruel death, and users of 1080 for pest control rely on a special exemption in the animal cruelty act to avoid getting charged with causing deliberate animal suffering.

The repellant is just meat meal or dried blood. That is a relatively cheap product to add ( don't believe the 'repellant is todear BS)One difficulty is that post BSE and CWD it is illegal to feed ruminant derived protein to ruminant livestock - meat meal was used in calf and stud stock rations in the past. I guess the fact that it is acting as a repellant in the pellets negates that compliance issue.
I would suggest that the deer are more conspicuous because they have come out of the blow fly riddled stench of the bush into the open post drop.

It's not due to less hunters going in those areas 'cos they know it's been poisoned?

Originally Posted by nightowl52

It's not due to less hunters going in those areas 'cos they know it's been poisoned?

Maybe less hunters with a dog, going back. I never took my dogs back for 12 months.

That was my understanding too Cordite. Thought it was all about possums, rats and stoats etc, and deer were just collateral damage.

Nah I call Bollocks to the no deer policy.
They bloody well know it gets them and want them gone.
Molesworth anyone?

Ive seen a big buck possum sitting beside a gin trap and "directing traffic" around it.....the .22lr sorted out that issue...
animals arent dumb...even sheep can "learn" what is good and what isnt.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

Ive seen a big buck possum sitting beside a gin trap and "directing traffic" around it.....the .22lr sorted out that issue...
animals arent dumb...even sheep can "learn" what is good and what isnt.

What about People

Originally Posted by Sarvo

What about People

I think the knee jerk reaction to Christchurch is a fine example of people's behaviour.
Blame the law abiding - cause they're easier to find.

I have very little hands on experience of this. The only area I have actively been involved in - and made observations and in with my own eyes - was a DOC block in the Ruapehu District in Nov 2017. Hunted it immediately before the drop, watched the drop in action from a nearby high point, continued hunting the affected block and the blocks (native, scrub and farm margins) immediately after.

I did not see a reduction in deer, pig or goat numbers. Pigs move, with the seasons, and at that time of the year they were mostly still in the bush on the berries during the day, and rooting the cleared scrubby farmland margins at night. Their numbers did not appear to drop. Deer (red and fallow) were as plentiful as ever. Goats were harder to judge, because we were hammering them at the time due to their affect on recent manuka plantings (honey).

So a very small sample, the only one I have personal experience of. 1080 made bugger all difference to our deer hunting.

I do not have a position on 1080, either way, I am totally conflicted and rather pathetically confused about it. So not trying to promote a view one way or the other.

The ERMA REVIEW of 1080 , 2007 expressly forbade the use of 1080 to target deer. However, I am aware that regulation has been broken including bycthe appkication of 1080 gel paited on the foliage of deer preferred vegetstion eith treated branches tied down to permit access by the deer. Fallow herds in SI have been desimated by 1080 in the past.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/a...ectid=12216739

88% of deer killed in the treated area and at least 8-9 years for the deer numbers to recover. (IF left alone) OSPRI / DoC habits of poisoning every 3-4 years could therefore wipe out deer in that sort of terrain.

I have on three seperate occaisions written to government explaining how TBFree AHB OSPRI are spending Three Billion Dollars more than they need to in their great Bovine TB crusade. IMO they are in collusion with DoC and heavily subsidising DoC poisoning operations elsewhere on the pretext of bTB threat as far as 20 km away from any recorded tb animal as long ago as 8+ years.