Last week, the Department for the Environment made a report about using 1080 poison in the forests. The head of this department, Dr Jan Wright, studied the use of 1080 and decided that it was the best solution to the problem of animal pests.
New Zealand has no native mammals, except a flying bat. Many native birds do not fly and they make their nests in the ground. They were safe from predators. However, today there are too many predators.
In the nineteenth century, New Zealanders made the mistake of bringing in possums from Australia, and rats and stoats from Europe. Possums kill the young trees and spread TB (tuberculosis) to cows. Rats and stoats eat the eggs and chicks of native birds including kiwis. Only one out of 20 kiwi chicks survives.
DOC (the Department of Conservation) has been using 1080 in some forests. They drop poisonous carrots from planes. Many local people are angry about this. They worry that the water in the rivers will be poisonous but Dr Wright says that they would have to drink thousands of litres of water before they became ill.
Other people against 1080 say that DOC can use possum traps instead. Possum fur can be mixed with wool for knitting sweaters and other warm clothes. However, Dr Wright says that a lot of the forest is too thick with trees. It is difficult to find a way through the trees. People against 1080 also say it doesn’t work. There are about 1 million possums in our forests. Dr Wright says DOC hasn’t used enough 1080. The answer is to use more.
Vocabulary
pest – a animal (or plant) that you don’t want; it’s hard to get rid of it
mammal – an animal which doesn’t lay eggs; it has live babies. the babies drink their mother’s milk. It has warm blood.
predator – an animal which kills another animal for food.
stoats – small furry mammals
tb – a disease; it can get into cow’s milk
survives – it lives, doesn’t die
traps – a piece of equipment which kills an animal. Usually there is some food inside the trap. When the animal puts its head in the trap, it is killed.
Questions
Do you think it is possible to kill 1 million possums in traps?
Could we sell the fur from one million possums?
Are there other ways to kill rats and stoats?