Thread: TB in possums - not many if any

Originally Posted by kimjon

Sorry woody, your trapping figures are way out. There's no way you'd be able to continuously average 10ha per day in the back country (to <5% RTCI).

Actually you can. Especially if your given the $55 per ha (2010 cost. More today) on top of the earnings from skins and carcasses kimjon. This is where the public are simply believing the naysayers within the pro 1080 poison interests instead of properly analysing and field proving. At the least, a possum trap line will draw possums from 100 metres either side. Therefore for each kilometre of distance covered by a line, 20 hectares are trapped. Even at retirement age most reasonably fit men can cover a 10 km round trip in a day. That's potentially 200ha per day. Assume 4 trips allowing prebaiting, the daily coverage properly trapped is 50 ha per day. Then deduct days for admin, servicing, wet weather, access etc. The 10 ha per day I used in a previous post is extremely conservative. I reckon if trapper were offered $55 per ha on top of their skins, fur and carcasses there would be a line over a mile long of applicants for the jobs. Good men could easily earn over $500 per day. The trouble is, the vested interests and bureaucrat will keep refusing and supressing the option of subsidising trapping to the equivalent TRUE cost of 1080 poisoning in order to save their plush unproductive arses and their million dollar 1080 contract incomes. This is not simply a problem relating to 1080; it is a problem of irresponsible central and local government operations across the board throughout NZ. There are countless examples occurring every month. Dunedin drains; Canterbury Council run by Commissioners; many councils massive interest debts; burgeoning rates increases--- the list goes on , and is getting worse.