The most controversial movie in the Reel Earth environmental film festival airs tonight.
Organisers of the festival debated whether to run Poisoning Paradise, a film on 1080 possum control in New Zealand, because it caused such a backlash at other screenings around the country.
With one scene showing a cow writhing in pain, dying a slow death after accidentally eating the poison, while its owner sobs and grabs a shotgun to end its misery, the 90-minute film is bitter, harsh, and polarising.
But on the Reel Earth festival's website, organisers said they decided not to shy away from controversial films.
Poisoning Paradise puts the case that dropping 1080 into "New Zealand's pristine forests and streams" is an atrocity threatening our wildlife, our international image, and our people.
The film has been heavily criticised for misrepresenting current practices, using anecdotal evidence but ignoring sound science, cherry-picking experts, failing to recognise the difference between effects on populations and individuals, and on many other grounds, yet the public has had few opportunities to see the film, the website said.
"Despite strong reservations we feel further silencing of Poisoning Paradise is not in your interests.
"We feel it's better to listen to and understand arguments than to try to censor them, and we feel that by refusing to screen Poisoning Paradise we would be telling you we didn't believe you could think clearly enough to assess the film yourself."
The film's co-director, Clyde Graf, said the film presents the facts government departments want to keep hidden.
"I spent a lot of time in the bush and got to see the realities.
"It's deeply disturbing."
The film slams the Conservation Department, but local DOC staff say they're up for the challenge.
A DOC-produced film will run after Poisoning Paradise outlining the other side of the story. Manawatu DOC still drops 1080 in the northwest of the Ruahine Ranges.
Area manager Jason Roxburgh has already seen the film and is encouraging others to go to see it.
"We are really keen to encourage debate.
"If you are arguing a cause, you cannot argue it well unless you know something about the other points of view in the argument, that's why I went to see it."
The Animal Control Board is also criticised in the film.
Spokesman for the board, Mike Hansen, said New Zealand had a serious problem with possums and other pests, which transmitted tuberculosis, destroyed native forests, and killed wildlife.
This problem was completely avoided in the film, which presents an emotive argument against 1080 use, he said.
Ad Feedback "1080 is absolutely critical in our fight against TB. Diseased possums pass through farmland, leaving behind bacteria which infect beef, dairy and venison herds, risking our agricultural industry."
Use of the poison was set to strict guidelines
Friday, June 4, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Latest 1080 Protest
Anti-1080 protesters have hit the streets of Hokitika to show their opposition to a major aerial drop planned for the region. They have had a gutsful and enough of the regional council,the Animal Health Board,and DoC not listen.The protesters want the council to declare south Westland a 1080-free zone.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
More research on 1080 persistence in aquatic environments needed.
More research on 1080 persistence in aquatic environments needed.
After research showed "1080 solutions prepared in distilled water and stored at room temperature for 10 years showed no significant breakdown; moreover, solutions of 1080 prepared in stagnant algal-laden water did not lose biocidal properties during 12 months.
Source..
Contaminant Hazard Reviews 1 - 35
Patuxent Wildlife Research Centre.
Paper - (McIlroy 1981a).
After research showed "1080 solutions prepared in distilled water and stored at room temperature for 10 years showed no significant breakdown; moreover, solutions of 1080 prepared in stagnant algal-laden water did not lose biocidal properties during 12 months.
Source..
Contaminant Hazard Reviews 1 - 35
Patuxent Wildlife Research Centre.
Paper - (McIlroy 1981a).
Taranaki DOC workers sprayed us with 1080 pellets -
The Taranaki District Health Board is investigating claims that the Department of Conservation showered its own workers with 1080 poison during an aerial drop.
DOC sub-contractors told One News they saw a helicopter spraying weeds in Egmont National Park, which dropped 1080 pellets on top of them.
Dan Beattie said that after their 12-strong crew left the area, the chopper returned and "dumped a whole lot more 1080 on us".
He said they were not phoned or warned about the drop until after it took place.
DOC said it had no obligation to warn the contractors.
Spokesman Phil Fleury said they had been told two days in advance that the poison could be spread dependent on the weather.
"The courtesy call is the 48 hours notice and the choice that they can make to be in there or not. We don't consider people were at risk while they were in the park while this operation was on."
Source NZ Herald
DOC sub-contractors told One News they saw a helicopter spraying weeds in Egmont National Park, which dropped 1080 pellets on top of them.
Dan Beattie said that after their 12-strong crew left the area, the chopper returned and "dumped a whole lot more 1080 on us".
He said they were not phoned or warned about the drop until after it took place.
DOC said it had no obligation to warn the contractors.
Spokesman Phil Fleury said they had been told two days in advance that the poison could be spread dependent on the weather.
"The courtesy call is the 48 hours notice and the choice that they can make to be in there or not. We don't consider people were at risk while they were in the park while this operation was on."
Source NZ Herald
Monday, February 15, 2010
Animal Welfare Act 1999
National MP Simon Bridges has cross party support in seeking to raise the maximum penalty for willful ill-treatment of animals under section 28 of the Animal Welfare Act 1999 from 3 to 5 years imprisonment.
"This Act is about knowingly ill-treating animals in a particularly gruesome way”
"Section 28 creates the most serious offense in relation to animals and prohibits the willful ill-treatment of an animal where the animal is permanently disabled, or dies, or the pain or distress caused to the animal is so great that it is necessary to destroy the animal in order to end its suffering."
This amendment to the Act as well as the Act itself is good for anti 1080 campaigners because DoC are using 1080 poison knowingly inflicting hideously long painful deaths on numerous animals from rodents, rabbits and possums, to pigs, deer, goats and birds by the use of large scale 1080 areal poison drops on DoC and private land around the country including Taranaki's Egmont National Park.
It is surprising that the SPCA prosecutors have not used this Act to date to prosecute DoC and its 1080 program. Surly all welfare of Animals must be dealt with as a societal responsibility and all animals need the same protection from human induced cruelty whether it be at the hands of a small child, psychopathic individual, insensitive farmer or zoo operator, or pest control operators.1080 and several other poisons currently in use are slow and indiscriminate killers which need to be urgently phased out as alternatives to their use exist. To continue to knowingly cause a tortuous death when an alternative's exist. Meet the parameters of section 28 of the Animal Welfare Act. Prosecuting DoC under the Act will send a message to government and government SOEs that they are not immuned to prosecution under the Act and need to set an example to stop this offending that is abhorrent in our society. It's more than not ok, it's an outrage.
Rusty Kane
"This Act is about knowingly ill-treating animals in a particularly gruesome way”
"Section 28 creates the most serious offense in relation to animals and prohibits the willful ill-treatment of an animal where the animal is permanently disabled, or dies, or the pain or distress caused to the animal is so great that it is necessary to destroy the animal in order to end its suffering."
This amendment to the Act as well as the Act itself is good for anti 1080 campaigners because DoC are using 1080 poison knowingly inflicting hideously long painful deaths on numerous animals from rodents, rabbits and possums, to pigs, deer, goats and birds by the use of large scale 1080 areal poison drops on DoC and private land around the country including Taranaki's Egmont National Park.
It is surprising that the SPCA prosecutors have not used this Act to date to prosecute DoC and its 1080 program. Surly all welfare of Animals must be dealt with as a societal responsibility and all animals need the same protection from human induced cruelty whether it be at the hands of a small child, psychopathic individual, insensitive farmer or zoo operator, or pest control operators.1080 and several other poisons currently in use are slow and indiscriminate killers which need to be urgently phased out as alternatives to their use exist. To continue to knowingly cause a tortuous death when an alternative's exist. Meet the parameters of section 28 of the Animal Welfare Act. Prosecuting DoC under the Act will send a message to government and government SOEs that they are not immuned to prosecution under the Act and need to set an example to stop this offending that is abhorrent in our society. It's more than not ok, it's an outrage.
Rusty Kane
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Another Anti 1080 Supporter Gives Her Reasons Why.
By Sheryn Clothier Editor "TreeCropper" the NZTCA national magazine.
I recently viewed Poisoning Paradise, an anti-1080 documentary by Steve and Clyde Graf. These brothers obviously know and love our bush, and had some superb footage: of stags called up to the camera; of kiwis hunting in daylight; of wekas eating 1080; of koura (fresh water crayfish) fighting over 1080 carrots; of tomtits pecking at full-size 1080 bait; of cattle and dogs and horses slowly dying horrific and cruel deaths; of hundreds of birds, deer, sheep and pig carcasses, not resting in peace, but contorted into an ugly and obviously painful death spasm.
Forest and Bird support 1080, claiming it is a "humane way to kill" and "causes herbivores to die quietly from heart failure". There is absolutely no possible way you could buy that line after seeing this footage. That we can cause uproars over Crafar Farms and SPCA examples of animal cruelty, but condone this at governmental level, over and over again, in our beautiful bush, is incredible.
DOC dismissed the documentary as emotive - they were right, it is.
But even if we could dismiss the humane issues as a necessary evil (and no animal is that evil) - where is the justification?
Asking DOC gets a pre-programmed mantra: "Aerial 1080 drops are the only economical way to control possums, and possums must be controlled because they are a major cause of Tb – which could affect our export markets."
Hunters and trappers say they can achieve a cleaner, greener, more humane, and semi-profitable control by trapping and selling the meat and fur. 1080 proponents say ground control doesn't work, only easily accessible areas are targeted and trappers move on to more profitable areas once a certain level is reached - effectively 'farming' possums.
Anti-1080s disagree; they say ground control can achieve a higher kill rate and,
besides, the land next to stock is easily-accessible. They say bounty systems have worked before, and can work again.
NPCA (National Possum Control Agencies) advises that $80 million is spent each year on possum control. In 10 years we have reduced our estimated possum population from 70 million to a 'best informed estimate' (no one really knows) of 50 million possums.
That's $40 a possum.
That's a lot of taxpayers' money. That's a lot of subsidy for a new industry. That is some bounty.
[continued next column - click the bar below]
Possum processors say their 100-ton Japanese orders of possum meat vanished into thin air when they were unable to guarantee 1080-free product. Maybe it is not just about anti-1080, maybe it is also about wasting tax-payers' money, creating new jobs and supporting a sustainable, environmentally-friendly, clean-green industry that could eventuate in self-sustaining possum control?
Land Care Research themselves admit that "...Tb is not widespread in possums and is often difficult to find. On a broad scale, prevalence of infection is usually less than 2%."
And even at that small level, Anti-1080s ask for the evidence that infected possums actually do re-infect bovines. And ask what is going to happen to our export beef market when it is realised 1080-contaminated cows can, and probably have been, processed into beef? That 1080-contaminated milk is mixed into the national vat?
Studies on the effects of 1080 seem to be amazingly absent. What happens to the eels that eat the poisoned carcasses? The trout that eat the poisoned koura? The hunter's pregnant wife who eats the contaminated pheasant (or pig or deer)? What happens to our invertebrate, bacteria and fungi? What is the long-lasting effect on biodiversity after such a massacre of our bird life? How does it affect humans drinking contaminated water?
Not only are the ramifications not known, the basic recommendations from the 1080 manufacturer are not even followed. We are endangering our very valuable clean green image, stifling a new industry and potential jobs, and poisoning our very precious paradise.
And I can't understand one single real reason why.
I was somewhat anti-1080 before, having heard what it had done to family dogs, and noticing myself its lethal effect on birds, and felt DOC were very heavy-handed and undemocratic whenever approached about it. But as a tree cropper, I have no love for our furry Aussie pests and am the first out with the .22.
But I do have an almost worshipful, protective respect for our endemic bush, and consider the mass genocide of 1080 a pointless, inhumane sacrilege. After watching Poisoning Paradise and researching this editorial, I am now definitely in the anti-1080 camp.
I recently viewed Poisoning Paradise, an anti-1080 documentary by Steve and Clyde Graf. These brothers obviously know and love our bush, and had some superb footage: of stags called up to the camera; of kiwis hunting in daylight; of wekas eating 1080; of koura (fresh water crayfish) fighting over 1080 carrots; of tomtits pecking at full-size 1080 bait; of cattle and dogs and horses slowly dying horrific and cruel deaths; of hundreds of birds, deer, sheep and pig carcasses, not resting in peace, but contorted into an ugly and obviously painful death spasm.
Forest and Bird support 1080, claiming it is a "humane way to kill" and "causes herbivores to die quietly from heart failure". There is absolutely no possible way you could buy that line after seeing this footage. That we can cause uproars over Crafar Farms and SPCA examples of animal cruelty, but condone this at governmental level, over and over again, in our beautiful bush, is incredible.
DOC dismissed the documentary as emotive - they were right, it is.
But even if we could dismiss the humane issues as a necessary evil (and no animal is that evil) - where is the justification?
Asking DOC gets a pre-programmed mantra: "Aerial 1080 drops are the only economical way to control possums, and possums must be controlled because they are a major cause of Tb – which could affect our export markets."
Hunters and trappers say they can achieve a cleaner, greener, more humane, and semi-profitable control by trapping and selling the meat and fur. 1080 proponents say ground control doesn't work, only easily accessible areas are targeted and trappers move on to more profitable areas once a certain level is reached - effectively 'farming' possums.
Anti-1080s disagree; they say ground control can achieve a higher kill rate and,
besides, the land next to stock is easily-accessible. They say bounty systems have worked before, and can work again.
NPCA (National Possum Control Agencies) advises that $80 million is spent each year on possum control. In 10 years we have reduced our estimated possum population from 70 million to a 'best informed estimate' (no one really knows) of 50 million possums.
That's $40 a possum.
That's a lot of taxpayers' money. That's a lot of subsidy for a new industry. That is some bounty.
[continued next column - click the bar below]
Possum processors say their 100-ton Japanese orders of possum meat vanished into thin air when they were unable to guarantee 1080-free product. Maybe it is not just about anti-1080, maybe it is also about wasting tax-payers' money, creating new jobs and supporting a sustainable, environmentally-friendly, clean-green industry that could eventuate in self-sustaining possum control?
Land Care Research themselves admit that "...Tb is not widespread in possums and is often difficult to find. On a broad scale, prevalence of infection is usually less than 2%."
And even at that small level, Anti-1080s ask for the evidence that infected possums actually do re-infect bovines. And ask what is going to happen to our export beef market when it is realised 1080-contaminated cows can, and probably have been, processed into beef? That 1080-contaminated milk is mixed into the national vat?
Studies on the effects of 1080 seem to be amazingly absent. What happens to the eels that eat the poisoned carcasses? The trout that eat the poisoned koura? The hunter's pregnant wife who eats the contaminated pheasant (or pig or deer)? What happens to our invertebrate, bacteria and fungi? What is the long-lasting effect on biodiversity after such a massacre of our bird life? How does it affect humans drinking contaminated water?
Not only are the ramifications not known, the basic recommendations from the 1080 manufacturer are not even followed. We are endangering our very valuable clean green image, stifling a new industry and potential jobs, and poisoning our very precious paradise.
And I can't understand one single real reason why.
I was somewhat anti-1080 before, having heard what it had done to family dogs, and noticing myself its lethal effect on birds, and felt DOC were very heavy-handed and undemocratic whenever approached about it. But as a tree cropper, I have no love for our furry Aussie pests and am the first out with the .22.
But I do have an almost worshipful, protective respect for our endemic bush, and consider the mass genocide of 1080 a pointless, inhumane sacrilege. After watching Poisoning Paradise and researching this editorial, I am now definitely in the anti-1080 camp.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Threatened Legal Action
A Tuatapere landowner has threatened legal action if the Department of Conservation flies over his property to drop 1080.
Graeme Muldrew told an Environment Southland resource consent hearing yesterday he was staunchly opposed to the aerial drop.
In a written submission, Mr Muldrew says: "I will consider legal action if my section is affected by this action and in particular my health and children."
Mr Muldrew yesterday said he planned to issue a trespass notice to DOC if it was successful with its application and if his section was in their "flight plan".
The move was backed by the property's co-owner Stephen Gamble, he said.
Mr Muldrew said while unsure if his property would be in the flight-planned route, his land was still likely to be affected regardless of where the poison was dropped.
A DVD titled Poisoning Paradise, which he played as part of his submission, showed the effect of 1080 on animals. It also showed the impact the poison had on plant and water life, Mr Muldrew said.
DOC has applied for resource consent to drop cereal bait over 25,000ha of Fiordland's Waitutu Forest.The application has drawn widespread disapproval, with 50 of 58 submissions on the application opposing the move. Four submissions supported the move and four were neutral.
The consent hearing began on Monday and finished yesterday, with committee members to meet next week to deliberate. A decision is expected early next year.
During his oral submission Mr Muldrew called on DOC to consider using ground control rather than an aerial drop.
He was one of six submittors opposing DOC's plan at the hearing yesterday.
Other submittors told the council the aerial drop would result in the unnecessary slaughter of non-target species, cause loss to commercial and recreational users, and have a long-term impact on the area's coastal and marine environments.
On Monday, DOC representative Dave Carlton told the consents committee the benefits of possum control using the poison outweighed the costs and risks if proper controls were in place.
Southland Times. 2/12/09
Graeme Muldrew told an Environment Southland resource consent hearing yesterday he was staunchly opposed to the aerial drop.
In a written submission, Mr Muldrew says: "I will consider legal action if my section is affected by this action and in particular my health and children."
Mr Muldrew yesterday said he planned to issue a trespass notice to DOC if it was successful with its application and if his section was in their "flight plan".
The move was backed by the property's co-owner Stephen Gamble, he said.
Mr Muldrew said while unsure if his property would be in the flight-planned route, his land was still likely to be affected regardless of where the poison was dropped.
A DVD titled Poisoning Paradise, which he played as part of his submission, showed the effect of 1080 on animals. It also showed the impact the poison had on plant and water life, Mr Muldrew said.
DOC has applied for resource consent to drop cereal bait over 25,000ha of Fiordland's Waitutu Forest.The application has drawn widespread disapproval, with 50 of 58 submissions on the application opposing the move. Four submissions supported the move and four were neutral.
The consent hearing began on Monday and finished yesterday, with committee members to meet next week to deliberate. A decision is expected early next year.
During his oral submission Mr Muldrew called on DOC to consider using ground control rather than an aerial drop.
He was one of six submittors opposing DOC's plan at the hearing yesterday.
Other submittors told the council the aerial drop would result in the unnecessary slaughter of non-target species, cause loss to commercial and recreational users, and have a long-term impact on the area's coastal and marine environments.
On Monday, DOC representative Dave Carlton told the consents committee the benefits of possum control using the poison outweighed the costs and risks if proper controls were in place.
Southland Times. 2/12/09
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