Thread: Otago University needs Feral Pig DNA Samples

Originally Posted by Inger

I'm not sure how widely spread the Canterbury Blues are Munsey? You would need to talk to John Earney (Rare Breeds President) to find that out. He would have more information on the habitat they prefer. You could be right about the Matagauri being more suitable for them to hide in, as their coat is a bluey grey colour, so they'd camouflage nicely.

John's got a small breeding herd of Canterbury Blues. He was selling the meat from the excess males at his Farmers' Market stalls, until the local meat works got bought out by an overseas company and now won't do small butchery lots of meat for the local trade, only export meat. Which means John can't get his meat killed locally, so can't supply his Farmers' Market customers. (He can't get a refund on his very expensive meat seller's licence either). So that's another avenue shut down, for selling heritage breeds meat. If you don't live near an abattoir, getting meat killed legally for the retail market, becomes uneconomical.

Would you mind answering a couple of questions for us 'Inger'. I have a friend who takes many Coromandel pigs every year.

1/How do we know that the science the taxpayer will be paying for here, will ever be of any use in the future. Or is it just science for science sake.

I mean when I worked for the Forest service we built exclosure plots, put photo points. Vast numbers of workers were involved in pellet counts. That's counting 'shit' in the Forest until the FRI (Forest Research Institute) had warehouses full of useless documents.

These documents must have been useless because since then the Forest Service and DOC have gone ahead and made every elementary mistake in the book. We went ahead and planted and aerial seeded vast amounts of our public land with some of the worst weeds in the world. And now we have rivers choked with lupins, stations that were once clear land are now a thickets of douglas fir, Radiata, silver poplar, and numerous other weeds that science told us would combat erosion.
Just one small example of the useless projects that have involved our native forests

2/ How do we know such information gleaned from these DNA samples will not at some stage be used by some Govt Agency. Tell us why Waikato Regional Council will not make use of this information to launch some form of destruction on our pig population. Waikato Regional Council has already placed our pig in the Coromandel as a pest that has no place on the Peninsula.

Surely you will need the DNA donor to supply an address and a locations where the pig has been taken from. Then you may need the donor to supply the number of pigs a year he takes out of this area. Then the DNA may point to the fact that the pigs in this valley are actually related to the pigs from the Hunga- Gunga valley that has TB and so the inference is that someone has liberated these pigs.
Its all innocent enough until the green rain falls.

Can you put up a copy of the documentation that will accompany the DNA samples.

Scribe.