The Department of Conservation and Compound 1080: A Scientific Appraisal
On 30 April, the Environment Risk Management Authority (ERMA) announced its preliminary findings from its reassessment of Department of Conservation (DoC) and Animal Health Board (AHB) use of the universal poison 1080 in New Zealand’s forests.
ERMA’s preliminary decision is to permit the continued use of aerial 1080, a finding that we find very troubling. About a year ago we learned that the New Zealand DoC was routinely and indiscriminately dropping food laced with tonnes of a universal poison, compound 1080, into New Zealand’s forest ecosystems.
1080 poisons all oxygen metabolizing organisms by blocking the conversion of food into energy.Officially, this aerial poisoning of our forests is being done to control possums (although the rationalizations and claims of DoC often go well beyond that).
DoC asserts that only possums and other so called “pests” are significantly poisoned.As scientists and life-long environmentalists, we were struck that this contention appears to violate the most fundamental ecological principles as well as common sense.Is it plausible that one could drop high protein, high carbohydrate food mixed with a poison that kills all animals into a semi-tropical ecosystem and only negatively affect possums and other “pests”? Scientists have a saying, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Thus, we resolved to determine whether the extraordinary claims of DoC have the weight of extraordinary evidence behind them.The answer is unequivocal: they do not.
After months of investigation, we found that DoC’s 1080 research sustained five truly astonishing conclusions.
First, there is not a single scientifically credible study showing that use of aerial 1080 on the mainland is of net benefit to any species of New Zealand’s native fauna … not one.We have challenged DoC to produce even one scientific study in even one species that supports their claims for the benefit and necessity for 1080.They have yet to respond.
Second, there is overwhelming evidence from DoC’s own research that aerial 1080 is killing large numbers of native animals, including birds, insects and other invertebrates, and our only native mammals, three species of bats. In addition most native vertebrate species and thousands of invertebrate species are entirely unstudied.
Third, there is not a single ecosystem level study showing lack of harm from repeated ‘treatments’ of mainland forests with aerial 1080, let alone one showing the overwhelming beneficial effects that DoC claims.
Fourth, it is probable that possums, if left unchecked by natural predators, would over time do substantial damage to our forests, but the degree of that damage is unknown, and whether that damage is being controlled with aerial 1080 without concurrent unacceptable and irreversible damage to the forest ecosystem is entirely unaddressed by DoC’s research.
Fifth, DoC’s 1080 research, in addition to its generally poor scientific quality, is biased and does not actually prove what DoC claims that it does.
In short there is nothing in the scientific record that remotely would justify the following statement from DoC’s May 14 press release:“Without 1080, the price New Zealanders would have to pay in the loss of their unique species and habitats is too awful to contemplate.”In fact, DoC’s own science tells a grim story quite to the contrary.