Interesting article, only 54 possums out of 124,213 possums over 9 years had TB
Lack of disease raises questions over possum killing, poison drops - National - NZ Herald News
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Interesting article, only 54 possums out of 124,213 possums over 9 years had TB
Lack of disease raises questions over possum killing, poison drops - National - NZ Herald News
Not surprised by that, I've killed, skinned and chopped up a few thousand possums, never seen one with obvious lesions, cysts or signs of TB. I have spoken with possumers who have though.
Uncontrolled stock movements is by far the worst culprit for TB spread.
Possums still need to be controlled, using TB as an excuse is now pretty debatable, we all know that. The fact that they eat our native bush and do a fair bit of damage is also something we know, hence the need for control.
Like any pest they need a variety of methods implemented to really put a dent in their numbers. One method alone won't work.
The "reasons" portrayed to the general public by DoC and the media for the most recent 1080 drops has shifted significantly though...from possums and TB being the "need", to a focus on "battle for the birds" and killing rats and mice.
In the near future I don't see a reduction in aerial 1080 operations, I would like to, but can't see it happening. One day hopefully they'll see that 40 odd years of dropping poison everywhere willy nilly, every few years, hasn't actually worked.
Hopefully we will see a shift to more focussed or aimed methods of eliminating pests, but with some of the shiny bummed office folk running DoC in charge, I don't see it happening soon.
I reckon one of the reasons we continue to see NZ being poisoned wholesale is that the Ministers of Conservation and MPI respectively do not want to be the ones that carry the can for all their predecessors support of the bullshit that surrounds the 1080 poison use scam. The worms are squirming. Take a look at this link.
03.06.15 - General Debate - Part 4 | In The House
Questions .What if all the animals , birds and fish were killed in this country
What if there was nothing left to kill for the table
What if `as there's nothing left to kill, we don't need firearms
What if the banks or safe pay who runs eftpos shut down like it did in Taupo the other day
How could you survive
I think now someone has control
You can add you ideas to this from outside the square, sort of speak and I will get some flack but I can handle it
Don't think it's a sinister plot to be honest. Incompetence is very nearly as dangerous though
1080 seems to draw all the nut bags up. Jesus fucking christ seriously.
Go put on your tin foil hat the goverment isnt going to do any of that shit ffs.
Guns only for killing? What about all our target shooting sports? Small bore full bore shotguns pistols and so on.
Get a hold on life ffs
BAN 1080!! :yuush:
My dad was a stock agent, when they backed of tb vector control a few decades back, lots of properties became infected. He said he could name 5 farmers who committed suicide when tb took their livelihoods away.
When I talk to him about it he always says "people have short memories"
Kj
+1 agree on banning explore other avenues, it's 2015 FFS.
Yes. I had a beef herd under TB movement control as did many others' in our area. Got a drought on top of the movement restrictions and I was praying for 1080 and a clean up of 'possums.
The ban 1080 brigade are in wonderland. Its emotional thinking.
Restrictions on 1080 I could agree with, but banning is bananas. At the very least until there is a viable alternative.
If you have had to deal with TB, one alive infected 'possum is one too many.
Infected cattle are far more of a threat than possums. These are figures provided by MPI.
Tb detected in opossums by year
2007-08
2008-09
2009-10
2010-11
2011-12
2012-13
2013-14
2014-15
Source: Primary Industries. Minister Nathan Guy
Possums surveyed per year
4871
13,874
23,339
17,576
25,103
18,682
10,930
9838
Tb found by year in surveyed possums
09
6
1
9
12
17
Movement of cattle is without doubt the major cause of bTB infections, including into wildlife. piss poor unreliable bTB tests are only accurate to plus or minus 20% of stock. It is well known that bTB clears can test positive and bTB infected animals can test negative. many farmers have been unwittingly buying infected stock from other farmers who also may be assuming the cattle are clear when in fact they are not. The very low incidence of possums infected with bTB prove that the biggest problem lies within the farming industry itself, and with the poor real performance of the AHB / TB free NZ. Possums have too long been a very convenient excuse to apply mass poison applications over vast areas of our country.
We've put a man on the moon, built Concorde, have Dreamliners and A380s, the shuttle, battery cars and planes, higher and higher buildings, faster and faster trains, bigger ships, the World Wide Web, GPS. Amazing computers and phones. Shoot 50 cals off the shoulder etc etc etc, technical and pharmaceutical advances it goes on and on, but we haven't found a better way than 1080 to control opposums, what a fuck up!:sick:
Haven't cured the common cold yet though :P
Takwe ya fliuppers offf pengy:yaeh am not durnk:
The people who arent on the ban 1080 brigade are in dreamland or working for the pro 1080 brigade. If people really think 1080 is about possum control you couldnt be fewer from the truth. Its BIG BUSINESS and back handers for the government. First it was the fight to control possums because of TB and eating the native.
30 years or so of bombing the place its getting very difficult to justiy using 1080 to kill fuck all possums with little evidence of TB. As its become such BIG business and more needs to be produced and used the possum has become the bird egg eating demon that needs to be stopped.
Government had to dream up something so the "Battle of the birds" Bs was dreamed up so they can justify not only the continue use of deadly 1080 but f king more. So its the rats and the stoats now that need the 1080 bomb, plus the few possums left to save the birds that 1080 by kill is harmless to (yeah right)
1080 as long as its making money is here to stay, and the government will dream up whatever it takes to keep it rolling along.
What gets me with they BS story about lets save the birds is this...
Firstly, years ago when i was pighunting everyweekend when there was untold possums around in the bush there were plenty of birds of all sorts around as well. 20 so years later theres fuck all possums around in the same areas but no more birds thn there was back then.
Secondly, 30 or so years of bombing the place with 1080 why hasnt the by kill controled rats and stoats?
If the rats and pests etc are out of control and a threat to birds which have lived with rats and stoats for untold years with no problems how comwe the drops over 30 years hasny done a thing?
Do they have to change the baits so its more suitable for rats and stoats so it works better?
If so how come they continue with baits designed still to kill possums and deer and pigs (which is the aim apart from the money) instead of the aim to kill rats as clearly 30 years of bombing the country has done nothing.
Its all BS and 1080 should be banned apart from the remote areas where we all know it works at least on possums.
Trapping and bait should be used in accessable areas but while 1080 is big business and making money its unlikely thats going to happen without a huge public backlash but theres many a brain dead people in this country that has fallen for the crap the government and DOC has feed them
?
Rats breed at astonishing rates. About a linear 10% population increase per month, so within 10-12 months the population is nearly back where it started. But that's a year with no rats...so that's good. Rats are the reason there's less birds now, not 1080.
Kj
I hate possums because of the amount of vegetation and bird egg and fledgelings they eat. TB is much less of a worry I reckon with regards to possum control
Sent from my workbench
i have seen a few different pics. i had never seen that info before googling just before when you questioned it.
you can't discredit it, there is hard evidence. to say it is a freak occurrence is silly i think. to capture it more would take the same effort that was put into that, monotoring a number of nests in a number of trees.
Quote:
In 1993 evidence was first uncovered of the effect of possums on native wildlife. A time-lapse video camera captured possums eating the chicks and eggs of the endangered kōkako. Of 19 nests monitored over a four-year period, cameras recorded possums eating chicks and eggs in four. Possums had not been suspected in the past because they were considered vegetarian, and because it is hard to find traces of birds in possum faeces or intestines.
Since then, possums have been caught on film eating the eggs, chicks and even adults of other native bird species, including kererū, kiwi, harrier hawk, fantail, muttonbird, and tūī. This predatory behaviour has driven some species into decline.
In areas where possums are not controlled, few kōkako and kererū fledglings survive to adulthood. In a study in Pureora Forest in 1997, robins in an area treated with 1080 poison (used to kill possums) had 67% nesting success, compared with 30% in the area not treated. After a year, robin numbers had increased by 37% in the control area, compared with 16% outside.
this image sums it up well i think
http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g1...psryttifpd.jpg
A rat and a possum rading the same nest at the same time! Id call photoshop but that riskes being a kook :D
Does that possum
Attachment 37238
just look too much like Uncle Fester?
Attachment 37239
Better that than mortitia haha
Sent from my workbench
An article in Fridays ODT page 11 headline stated 70% of TB in cattle is caused by possums.
Hmmm speaking of made up figures...
But in all seriousness, im not a huge fan of 1080 myself, but there is no realistic alternative. Trapping easy country costs 2 or 3 times as much money, and isn't safe or even realistic at all in hard country. If you think 1080 is a conspiracy and is simply a case of "big business" then attempting to do it via trapping would have to be even "bigger business" and you're setting people up to fail (possum control is performance based - no pass equals no pay!).
Traping only gets one pest, e.g if you want to get rats, mice, possums, stoats....then you need four different trapping regimes to target each pest individually, and trapping rats and mice on a large scale simply isn't possible because rats and mice have such small home ranges you'd needs an impossible numbers of traps. The true cost would be the sum of all those meathods added together (rats, mice, possums, stoats...) $$$$.
1080 will do all of the above for a fraction of the cost. And its actually achievable, unlike trapping all those pests (rats, mice, possums ad stoats) which is fantasy.
Id love to see other methods used in the future, but if we're been realitic there's nothing even close to replacing it right now.
Kj
Exactly. But if no control was done the problem can only compound. Think of it like money in the bank on compounding interest...a little, plus a little add up to a lot in a few decades. This happened last time tb vector control was reduced, going back to my father's quote "people have short memories", and this is especially so when issues aren't so obvious.
Kj
I actually agree with most of your post. But there is shit loads of country that I would consider not safe to send people to trap, that possums (rats, mice, stoats) live in. I goat hunted such areas, and was able to choose my route, ie. Keep myself realatively safe, but if trapping you need to put the traps every 20m or so regardless of terrain to be effective...this would not be safe in such areas.
Also the cost ($/ha) as you pointed out needs to be increased yet again, as trappers are not paid their worth...but that only increases the price per hectare, and widens the cost gap between trapping and aerial 1080.
Wasnt there an article a while back comparing the real cost of aerial 1080 operations with trapping? IIRC there was a trapping contractor who wanted a chance to compete and DOC wouldn't even look at his proposal, he was trying to make the point that the "aerial 1080 is much more cost effective" claim isn't necessarily based on real numbers.
If you were to pick and choose a few examples I'm sure on some really small blocks you could make aerial 1080 look expensive and trapping seam comparable. But on anything other than a little easy to do block the gap will be considerable.
Also when making this comparison, you would need to add all the trapping costs for all the target pests, so a trapping contract for rats, mice and stoats to get a true overview of the costs
Kj