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Kea have been in the news again, with TV1 viewers on Wednesday night (9/2/22) treated to the story that tradespeople are sought to help in kea habitat, replacing lead in rooves. This follows last October’s worrying Stuff News headline: “This Is How It Ends: As old as the Southern Alps, kea are on the edge of extinction” (Vance, 2021).
According to the Department of Conservation (DoC) it has solved the problem of previous years’ monitored kiwi chicks dying at Shy Lake, Fiordland, by aerially poisoning the surrounding 40,000 ha of rainforest and islands (the “Wet Jacket” poisoning operation).
I am writing to bring your attention to the serious issue of the New Zealand Government’s aerial poisoning of a World Heritage site and hope that you will urgently contact the World Heritage Committee so they may act on this matter.
On April 2, like a belated April Fool’s joke, the Otago Daily Times reported that NZ’s Department of Conservation (DoC) intended to poison a large chunk of virgin rainforest in Fiordland this month.
In 1979 scientist Eric Spurr warned that wide scale poisoning of New Zealand with compound 1080, intended to kill introduced mammals, was actually killing kea and many other animals. It took decades before NZ’s Department of Conservation (DoC) finally began to monitor kea deaths from 1080 poisoning.
Dr Jan Wright, Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE), claimed in her 2011 public report “Evaluating the use of 1080: Predators, poisons and silent forests” that 1080 had been rated as “moderately humane”. This term can now be found shortened to “humane” when you browse some official poisoning documents such as Assessments of Effects.
Insects were in the media spotlight earlier this year due to a review published in the journal Biological Conservation. The review showed that insect populations worldwide are declining dramatically, largely due to habitat destruction and pesticides. Their importance in ecological systems, as food for other animals, pest controllers, recyclers and pollinators was spelt out.
1080 poison is currently being spread across New Zealand’s wildlands, in taxpayer-funded operations aimed at pest mammals. One of the extremely dangerous properties of 1080 is a marked ability to spread in water.
The kea, NZ’s unique mountain parrot, needs urgent consideration. This spring, poisonous food baits are being spread by air over of much its habitat by the Department of Conservation (DoC). Twelve per cent of resident kea are expected to die within a few days of the poisoning, according to DoC’s studies.