1080 (Sodium Fluoacetate) how safe is it

7 Aug

1080 is commonly used here in NZ for the controlling of possums, rats and stoats. 1080 is very toxic to all animals including us humans.

For a start I believe that there are or were 2 politicians who owned the company that imports 1080. and the government spends millions of dollars towards this.

Did you know that we are one of the only countries in the world to use 1080, most other countries have banned the use of 1080 due to its inability to kill only the target species.

They tell us we would need to eat about 7 pellets to kill us, why then did they shut down a towns water supply some years ago, because one pellet was found beside the towns water storage tank.

I was involved in doing a survey of animals killed in 1080 drops in the Pureora forest years ago and found that only 40 percent of the possums were killed and 70 percent of the deer. The overall cost to kill one possum was $14. wouldn’t it be better for the environment to have people shooting or trapping possums for say $1 each, it would spread the money around those who want to work and the possum population would be a lot less than it is now.

We were told years ago there were 70 million possums in this country and these days there are about 35 million, If you take the billions of dollars spent so far to only reduce the population by half, is an out right crime and a waste of money.

I have spent fifty years hunting and fishing in our exotic and native forests. I enjoy being out there it’s very peaceful and quiet. I love listening to the birds singing. Most hunters out there would say the same thing. In those years i have never seen anyone (greenies) apart from other hunters in the bush. We are the only ones to see the real damage done.

Whenever there has been a 1080 drop in the forest the call of the birds goes quiet, sometimes taking 10 to 15 years to come back.

Years ago before the do goody brigade banned using fur for fashion you would not see a dead possum run over by cars, but after the ban came on you would see heaps of run over possums on the road which is an indication that possum numbers in the area are very high. even today when you drive through roads with bush on each side you will see road kill.

A few years ago scientists were dumfounded by the lack of butterflys, could this be the 1080 toxin is sucked up by plants and trees and kills off anything that eats the leaves, this is a very natural thing plants do to defend themselves against attack. I think that when they find out one day the damage 1080 does to our environment it will be banned as it has in other countries, look at 245T it was evetually banned because it stays in the soil for ever, farmers can’t graze any paddocks hard as the toxin gets into the milk and this is forever.

Finally how do you know if there are not traces of 1080 in your drinking water it must get into the ground water and into rivers, food for thought?

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